





































WHICH TEMPLE YE 
ARE 


By 
A. H. 



• f t \J 

{Canada) 

Author of “ He restoreth my soul ” 


“ God, God! 

With a child’s voice I cry, 

Weak, sad, confidingly— 

God, God! 

Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up 
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop 
As ours, o’er many a tear.” 


Mrs. Browning. 


G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 


NEW YORK AND LONDON 
Gbe 1?nicfcerbocfcer press 
1913 


V 4- ^ 01 

vJs" 0 ^ 


Copyright, 1913 

BY 

ELLIOT STOCK 


Ube IKmcltcrbocfcev press, IWew JjJorfi 


P 


©CI.A357038 


An Appeal to Those of the Faith 




CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction .vii 

CHAPTER I 

“A Habitation of God” i 

CHAPTER II 

“ Christians ”.9 

CHAPTER III 

“Shall He Do Also” .... 31 

CHAPTER IV 

“By This shall All Men Know” . . 53 

CHAPTER V 

“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” . . 77 

CHAPTER VI 

“ Father, I have Sinned ” . . .100 

CHAPTER VII 

“A People Prepared for Him” . . 121 


V 


VI 


Contents 


CHAPTER VIII 

“ I will Counsel Thee with Mine Eye upon 
Thee”. 

CHAPTER IX 

“The Urim and the Thummim” 

CHAPTER X 

“If I by the Finger of God” . 

CHAPTER XI 

“Quit you like Men, Be Strong” . 

CHAPTER XII 


PAGE 

147 

174 

200 

224 


“Behold the Man” 


• 254 


INTRODUCTION 


“Know ye not that ye are a Temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the 
Temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the Temple of God 
is holy, which Temple ye are.” i Cor. iii. 16. 

T N common usage, a temple is a building set aside 
* for the service of the cause to which it is dedi¬ 
cated. A temple of art is for the service of art, 
a temple of music for the service of music, a temple 
of some Order for the service of that Order; and 
so a Temple of God is a building set aside for the 
service of the Living God. 

Paul tells the early Christians that such they 
were, and as he spoke or wrote by inspiration— 
excepting when he states otherwise—we must ad¬ 
mit that this definition is a fitting one. Then we 
must assume the position that a modern Christian 
is also a Temple of God and that his only office in 
life is to be a building fitted for God’s service. If 
we of The Truth believe anything of the Inspired 
Scriptures we must believe this. If our minds 
and bodies are engaged in service which ignores 
or opposes Christ’s coming Kingdom on Earth, 
we are either profaning His Temple, or we are 
not occupied by God the Perfect Builder, but by 
Satan the destroyer. 

vii 


Introduction 


viii 

Perhaps we need the Scourge of Cords only, per¬ 
haps we need to be rebuilt, fitly framed together, 
so that we may each grow into a fit habitation for 
that service which shall be for Christ’s redemptive 
work alone. 

If we be sincere we shall never be satisfied with 
our attainments until we arrive at such a status 
that it would be no sarcasm to term us Christians. 
We shall not—as some of us do in our new-born 
zeal—be so foolish as to turn our backs on the 
organized Church of Christ because it is not quite 
immaculate, but we shall, like the Master, remain 
therein and do our best in assisting to make it, and 
ourselves, more nearly so. We shall “Tarry in the 
City” until we be endowed with gifts from on high. 

Alas, we now “Tarry,” but the gifts, how rare 
they are! We receive not because we comply not 
with the demands of the testing command, “As ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye also to 
them likewise. ” This is a bitter lesson for most of 
us to learn, bitter as the waters of Marah. Obedi¬ 
ence is the tree which shall sweeten it to our taste. 
We shall still hear the voice of Jehovah God saying, 
“If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of 
Jehovah thy God, and wilt do that which is right 
in his eyes, and wilt give ear to his commandments, 
and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the 
diseases upon thee, which I have put upon the 
Egyptians; for I am Jehovah that healeth thee.” 

This lesson gives us strong reason for weighing 


Introduction 


IX 


the manifold needs of those who are less fortunate 
than ourselves. It is in the degree to which our 
fruitful sympathies are attuned to the needs of the 
suffering children of the race, that we have become 
fitted to receive the Gift of the Spirit in our service. 
Nor crying, nor pain, must be permitted or toler¬ 
ated by us if we be in Christ’s service. We, having 
plenty, and living in comparative happiness, forget 
the degeneracy and squalor of those who are less 
fortunate. Our ears are so dulled by the jingling 
sounds of our social and commercial world that the 
half-inarticulate moan of distress scarcely reaches 
our consciousness. When we ignore or forget this 
sad, moaning cry, we are not Temples of the Living 
God, but of Satan, the destroyer. If we are in 
Christ’s service we shall work with Him and not 
ignore or forget, nor shall we work against the 
interest of His redemptive mission. Thus spake 
the Voice from out the Throne, “ Behold, the 
Tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell 
with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God 
himself shall be with them, and be their God; and 
he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and 
death shall be no more; neither shall there be 
mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more; the first 
things are passed away.” Thus our service is 
simply and lucidly set forth as being to assist the 
Redeemer of the world in removing misery and sin 
of any description. This is the only legitimate 
temple service of the soul at the present epoch. 


X 


Introduction 


When we see this plainly we shall realize that we 
are ignorant in mind and hungry in soul, and we 
shall arise and approach our forgiving Father and 
cry in true contrition, “Father I have sinned.” 
Already His pitiful eye is scanning the horizon, 
watching our tardy return to sanity and home. 
He will be moved with compassion when He sees 
that we also are moved with compassion towards 
the suffering and deprived children—His little ones. 
Consciousness of His approval will give us stead¬ 
fastness of purpose in our endeavours, and we shall 
feel that our labour will not be in vain, be it great 
or small. If we truly believe in the Gospel of our 
Lord and Redeemer, we shall be a power indeed in 
His service. Himself has said, “He that believeth 
on Me, the works that I do shall he do also. ” This 
is a strangely unappreciated promise of our beloved 
Elder Brother, our Priest, our King. It is one of 
the greatest crimes, if not the greatest and blackest 
crime of Christendom. Not only is it insulting to 
the offerer of this splendid attainment—this He 
would forgive—but when we dwarf our every 
faculty, debauch and brutalize our every instinct, 
and refuse the helpful gifts of the Spirit, we hasten 
our own soul-suicide and that of the human race 
generally. We seem to prefer to be half-paralyzed 
beggars for our Creator’s bounty, than to become 
Sons of God with attainments in keeping with the 
dignity of that relationship. 

We are judged by our works. If they be of the 


Introduction 


xi 


Father they abide, and we are rewarded by Him; 
but even if we were not in any special sense re¬ 
warded we should still be vastly gainers by noble 
experience. True is the saying that “Virtue is its 
own reward.” Deprivation and thoughtless self¬ 
ishness alike produce degeneracy of a people. 
Against these evils we must strive night and day in 
agony of tears and prayers, or retain our Cain-like 
instincts. Sons of God, Brothers of Christ, are 
those who have become cleansed from this blight¬ 
ing taint of Cain. When we look into these things 
with an unflinching eye, we shall see that we are not 
fit for eternal life or to be called Sons of God. 
Eternal life is the reward—or result of obedient 
unity with God in His serial order of bringing good 
out of evil, light out of darkness, order out of 
chaos, of bringing about the redemptive climax 
of fallen men being changed into Sons of God. 
Only by assisting with our best efforts, poor though 
they may seem, in this Christlike service, do we 
approach the entrance to eternal life. 

If we are sincere in our efforts we shall be 
strengthened by careful preparation, and we shall 
trust in the guiding eye of the Father. We shall 
learn to be absolutely obedient to the Divine call, 
no matter where it may lead us. We shall, with 
the Urim and the Thummim upon our breastplates, 
be in a position to call upon our God in every 
extremity that can possibly arise in our willing 
service towards the Kingdom of Christ on earth. 


Introduction 


xii 

We shall thus be able to “ Stand like the brave with 
your face to the foe.” “Wherefore take up the 
whole armour of God, that ye may be able to 
withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to 
stand.” 

But we shall never be able to attain to this 
exalted status unless we learn first to see our 
Redeemer as He really is, and allow His principles 
to inspire and permeate our motives, and purify 
our service. We must recognize Him as our only 
hope, as the only Author of eternal life, as the Way 
in which we may be brought into conformity with 
the original state of our being in which we were 
pronounced to be good. We are to be made pure 
and innocent by conforming to the image of the 
Blessed One. We shall thus become spiritually 
fit for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit whose 
temple we must indeed be, if we are to live eternally 
in the glad service of the Most High. 

“A Shepherd who giveth his life for the sheep, 

A Shepherd both mighty to save and to keep,— 

Yes, this is the Shepherd we need, 

And he is a Shepherd indeed! 

A Pilot who knoweth the dangers at hand, 

A Pilot who bringeth all vessels to land, 

Yes, this is the Pilot we need, 

And He is a Pilot indeed! 

Is He yours? 

Is this Saviour, who loves you, yours?” 

A. R. Habershon. 


WHICH TEMPLE YE ARE 





Which Temple Ye Are 


CHAPTER I 

“a habitation of god” 

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for 
good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in 
them. And he came and preached peace to you that were far 
off, and peace to them that were nigh; for through him we both 
have our access in one spirit unto the Father. So then ye are no 
more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with 
the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the 
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself 
being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building fitly 
framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in 
whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the 
Spirit.’’ Ephesians ii. io, 17 to 22. 

Also we would quote the warning message of Jesus Christ to 
the Ephesians in the vision of John, “I know thy works, and thy 
toil and steadfastness, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and 
didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they are not, 
and didst find them false; and thou hast patience and didst bear 
for my name’s sake, and hast not grown weary. But I have this 
against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love. Remember 
therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first 
works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out 
of its place, except thou repent.” Also Christ’s promise to 
another Church, thus, “He that overcometh, I will give to him to 
sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down 
with my Father in His throne. ” 

1 



2 


Which Temple Ye Are 


To be a “ Habitation of God ” is certainly a 
high calling. To be occupied by God the Father, 
Creator, Preserver, is safety indeed. To be ac¬ 
tive in His service is to be on the highway to 
ultimate success notwithstanding all the discour¬ 
agements which may assail us. No matter how 
sincere we may be in our convictions of the reality 
of our Faith, still, we must allow that we are very 
far from the status of Jesus the Christ. We cannot 
help perceiving how very far we are from being 
suitable for real, holy service, service that is 
peculiar to the closer relationship which should 
exist between ourselves and Christ in His redemp¬ 
tive work, service that will entitle us to be classed 
as Sons of God. True, we do at times feel a sort 
of faith in the eternal Father and His Son, our 
Redeemer. True, we do at times have vague 
desires that the actual Spirit of God should per¬ 
meate human affairs. These good impulses come 
faintly throbbing through our too lethargic souls, 
but alas, how little effort that is altogether good, 
results from these, perhaps only undefined and 
vague desires! 

It is necessary, then, that we should awaken 
from this state of partial coma in which our moral 
expressions are but the disconnected mutterings 
of a sleeping spirit in its restlessness. Thank 
God that it is this, and not actual imbecility of 
soul! Thank God for the infinite privilege that 
is still ours—to arise, stand on our feet, and begin 


“A Habitation of God” 


3 


to fill our true position as Sons of God! If we 
are to be citizens with the saints, fitly framed 
together by our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we 
must look into His economies more fully, and we 
shall soon convince ourselves how deplorably 
remote we are from His standard of citizenship. 
We shall find ourselves most unworthy of the 
privileges of true sonship, or true citizenship—of 
that indwelling of the Spirit which is the result of 
sonship, and which makes us true citizens of the 
Father’s house. In His house dwell souls of varied 
attainments. We shall possess that we can receive; 
we shall be occupied by that which we invite and 
attain. “In my Father’s House are many man¬ 
sions [abiding places]; I go to prepare one for 
you.” He is preparing one for me (I feel that I 
know this) in keeping with my soul’s earth life. 
Each of us has this hope. We cannot have the 
continued life unless we become homes for the 
Holy Spirit. Are we so pure in mind and conduct 
that we can invite our Father and His One Per¬ 
fected Son to come in and eat of the same bread 
that we eat of? Will they come in and “sup” 
with us on terms of fellowship? Can they? Are 
we individually in that blessed state of purity that 
would warrant the companionship of these illus¬ 
trious Guests? Are we carrying out the design 
of the Creator perfectly, as we have light to know 
good from evil? Would we always be willing to 
ask direct advice from Him on our private business 


4 


Which Temple Ye Are 

or our social affairs? Our business and our social 
affairs are by our birthright (rebirth) the Lord 
Christ’s redemptive issues. We cannot go through 
any ordinary routine employment that is not part 
and parcel of the ascent or descent of the soul 
of the race. “For we are his workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God 
afore prepared that we should walk in them.” 
Are we walking in helpful unity with this prepared 
plan, or are we hindering the completion of the 
redemptive scheme? We are each of us in our 
daily vocations doing either the one or the other. 
Sometimes I have a most miserable and ashamed 
feeling come over my inmost soul that it was our 
unworthy discipleship, seen by our Redeemer with 
prophetic ken, that amazed Him so much in 
Gethsemane’s awful hour. Mark tells us that he 
“began to be greatly amazed and sore troubled.” 
He sadly complained to his disciples, “My soul 
is exceeding sorrowful even unto death.” If the 
long-suffering Master were to come visibly to-day 
to inquire into the workmanship of each of us, 
from prelate to the humblest, would He have cause 
to be amazed and filled with sorrow? We can¬ 
not see Him with our dimmed eyes, therefore we 
say, “The Lord tarrieth.” But not so. We 
may not rest in this false security—cowards that 
we are—for we have not the assurance that He 
tarrieth. On the contrary we know that He is in 
constant knowledge, and has complete record of 


“ A Habitation of God ” 


5 


our thoughts and workmanship. This cannot con¬ 
duce to soul serenity, unless we be most childlike 
in our fixed hope, and determined endeavour, to 
grow Christwards! If we become as little children 
in the Kingdom, we shall greatly rejoice when we 
realize that our Elder Brother has us always in His 
constant care, that He can, and does, send min¬ 
istering angels to guard and strengthen us in our 
weakness and timidity. But I am afraid that we 
hide our faces from Him. I am sorely afraid that 
we despise His teaching and commands. Well 
might the seer-poet sorrowfully wail forth the com¬ 
plaining dirge: 

“He was despised, and forsaken of men; a man of 
sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from 
whom men hide their faces, he was despised; and we 
esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, 
and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him 
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was 
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon 
him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like 
sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one 
to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the 
iniquity of us all.” 

This saddest of songs tells us of the suffer¬ 
ing Messiah. Not of His typical but speedily 
ended suffering on the Cross alone, but of this 
amazing load of sorrow which has weighed so 


6 


Which Temple Ye Are 


heavily on His consecrated loving heart all down 
through these long centuries, and which bears 
heavily upon Him still. Small wonder that He 
will look coldly upon some of us when we shall 
unctuously cry, “Lord, Lord, did we not do many 
great things in thy name?” If we wish to receive 
the “Well done” instead of the “I never knew 
you, ” we had better question each his own heart, 
as to how this testing time is going to affect us. 

There is a vital question that we must each ask 
himself to-day. It is this: Am I in my heedless 
folly helping to continue the suffering of the 
Saviour? Not only does He say, “As much as ye 
did it, or did it not, unto one of these my little ones, 
ye did it or did it not unto me,” but it is given 
to His patient heart actually to feel this joy or woe; 
this growing hope and joy of the children, or the 
continued misery that we in our indifference so 
cruelly allow. He must feel it as a loving sensitive 
mother feels the joy or pain of her happy or suffer¬ 
ing child. By how much greater depth of feeling 
of tenderness is He sure to be possessed! So we 
are scientific and rational in feeling miserable and 
ashamed in the extreme when we know that with 
our modern enlightenment we are still allowing 
Christ to be despised, and His work to be ignored 
or in part ignored. Though the children of mis¬ 
fortune be not objects of interest to the masses of 
Christendom, still, it is strange indeed that we do 
not heed the lingering agony of the Son of Man! 


“ A Habitation of God ” 


7 


We are not in this chapter so much drawing 
attention to the helpful service of a Christian in 
this or that specific line, as to the nature of this so 
desirable union between Christ and a fellow child of 
God. “ I in the Father, ye in Me. ” We may not 
with impunity, or hope of eventual sonship to the 
Father, believe with the intellect in the Saviour of 
men’s souls, and yet not be united with Him in 
heart. We are told that the demons thus believe. 
Unity with the heart of the Son of Man and God 
brings us into that soul union which tends to in¬ 
struct us in our every thought and action. We 
come at length to see that all our earthly duties 
must be done as in the actual presence of God. In 
time we shall feel this Presence, not so much as 
that of a judge ready to convict, as that of a loving, 
parental, instructing security, constant and gentle 
as a mother is to her child. We shall always 
rejoice to do as we are instructed. If sometimes 
the duty appears to our child-eyes to be too great 
for us, we shall be reminded that the victory is 
not always to the strong. And sometimes we 
shall be counselled only to stand still and wait— 
which is at times one of the most difficult of tasks 
for an earnest spirit to perform. We shall know 
that God the Father has said, “I will guide thee 
with mine eye upon thee. ” We may always hear 
the assuring, comforting promise of the crowned 
Son of Man, 

All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and 


8 


Which Temple Ye Are 


on the earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of 
all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teach¬ 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I command 
you; and lo I am with you always (all the days) even 
unto the end of the world (the consummation of the 
age). 

It is this interunion of the Godhead with ourselves, 
childlike though we be, aye, must be, that will 
purify us, give us serenity of soul, earnestness of 
purpose, and eventually eternal life. Our work¬ 
manship will be approved, we shall be in process 
of becoming as a race, as a nation, as individuals, 
fitly framed together, a fit habitation of God. 

“ I hear at mom and even, 

At noon and midnight hour, 

The choral harmonies of heaven 
Earth’s Babel tongues o’erpower. 

Then, then I feel that he, 

Remembered or forgot, 

The Lord is never far from me, 

Though I perceive Him not.” 

J. Montgomery. 


CHAPTER II 


CHRISTIANS 

“The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” 

Acts xi. 26. 

“Wherefore hear the word of Jehovah, ye scoffers, that rule 
this people which is in Jerusalem.” Isaiah xxviii. 14. 

“For Jehovah hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep 
sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, 
the seers, hath he covered. And all vision is become unto 
you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one 
that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I 
cannot, for it is sealed; and the book is delivered to him that is 
not learned, saying, Read this I pray thee; and he saith, I am 
not learned.” Isaiah xxix. 10, 11, 12. 

I T would seem from prophetic warnings and 
exhortations, that sleepiness was a natural 
besetment of the Church, old and new. Awake! 
these prophets continually cry. It was ever the 
same theme with each prophet and with each 
people. The awakening of a people to existing 
wrong conditions was the aim of all prophetic 
effort. Jonah was sent to awaken the people of 
Nineveh, by warning them of their impending 
doom. This Jonah did so effectually that this 
mighty city of sinful souls bowed before the great 
God of Israel in sackcloth and ashes. Their belief 


9 


10 


Which Temple Ye Are 


was real to the heart’s core. Their repentance 
was desperately sincere. They cried mightily 
unto Jehovah God, hoping that He might deliver 
them from this avenging Nemesis that hung gloom¬ 
ily over the sin-sodden city. Paul in his letter of 
instruction to the Romans, after urging them to be 
honourable and kind in all their dealings one with 
another, makes a further call on their attention, 
thus: “And this, knowing the season, that already 
it is time for you to awaken out of your sleep; 
for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first 
believed.” It would seem to be Paul’s opinion 
that salvation was a thing of awakening to attain¬ 
ment, “For now it is nearer,” he said. These 
Romans, like ourselves, lived in the world among 
other men with whom of necessity they came con¬ 
stantly in contact. It was of the manner and 
spirit of this common everyday intercourse 
amongst their fellows, that Paul had mainly been 
speaking. Paul had been a man of the world, and 
he knew his world well. He was a philosopher. 
Now, he was also a Christian. He could not 
tolerate or understand a type of discipleship which 
did not purify men’s dealings with other men. So 
he concludes that they must be sleeping and must 
require awakening. 

The Messiah had come and had left behind Him 
His teaching, and was gone to His Father by way 
of the Cross. Paul had conversed with Him from 
out His hidden throne. It took Paul a long time 


Christians 


ii 


to conquer his thorn in the flesh, but by the 
teaching of Jesus he knew that it must be con¬ 
quered in order to obtain his crown of eternal life. 
Until he had conquered, he knew himself as feeding 
on husks in a far-off country. So he urged the 
new converts also, to realize their state and to 
strive to cleanse their own ways. 

What is a Christian, by contrast with the non- 
Christian? We speak of States, perhaps long 
passed away, as having been heathen or pagan 
nations. Just what is it that we mean? Do we 
mean that they built idolatrous houses, ate idola¬ 
trous food, wore idolatrous clothing, or just 
what is it that we do mean? As wealth stands 
for so much that is great, perhaps we mean to 
imply that these old pagan States used idolatrous 
coins as money. No! some wise one assures us, 
that is not it; the men themselves were pagans. 
Oh! we say, that is what is meant. Now we 
know that it was the men of these States who were 
pagans, and not their homes, or food, or clothing, 
or even their beloved coins. Perhaps it was then 
their physique that was pagan. I think not, as 
their mummies are pretty much the same shape as 
ourselves—and we are Christians. So we are 
forced to the position that it was something that 
they held as a belief in their minds, which gave 
reason for this distinctive appellation. It had to 
do with some mental conception, and their con¬ 
sequent attitude towards something outside of 


12 


Which Temple Ye Are 


themselves and their fellow-men. If we follow up 
the matter, we shall find that a heathen or pagan 
State is composed of individuals who conceive that 
there is some force or influence working in the 
world, which is to be feared, appeased, etc. They 
see the many marvels of nature, they, quite reason¬ 
ably, ascribed these influences to the various 
prominent objects such as the sun, moon, stars, 
and the wonderful and intricate life in animal 
sustenance and reproduction. Their minds are 
like the mind of the infant expanding to meet the 
wonders which surround it, wonders which have 
long ceased to interest its parent of maturer expe¬ 
rience. The infant mind is peering out into its 
new environment. The pagan soul peers out 
through its unprejudiced eyes into its unexplored 
empire. Some of the ritual that these children 
of ignorance set for themselves—not knowing 
better—was what would be for us obscenity, 
abomination. But then some of the habits of an 
innocent and lovely little child would cause us to 
be confined in a prison or an asylum for the insane. 

Come to a higher stage. Abraham saw God 
in nature more clearly than his immediate contem¬ 
poraries. The religion of types and shadowings 
followed in the wake of this clearer vision of the 
Father of the Faithful. Rules of life were set up, 
oblations were contritely offered when any of these 
laws were broken, and also as worship. This was 
well. In time this discipline produced a few men 


Christians 


13 


with the power of still clearer and farther-reaching 
vision—the prophets. These seers perceived that 
men were drifting far afield from the vision of 
their much lauded, but little obeyed, Father Abra¬ 
ham. They saw men turning the eye of faith in 
God away from Him to the ritual, which had only 
been instituted to remind them of Him. Only 
the seers perceived God in them now. These 
seers also saw with their clearer vision the material¬ 
istic trend of all religious exercise, their own not 
excepted. They knew that where there is no 
vision, the people cast off restraint. I think that 
they also saw that God was not a Being, like as a 
pagan ruler, to be appeased by the offering of 
material objects, but that eventually He must, 
and would, have living men, with living souls; 
men far in advance of their (the prophets) contem¬ 
poraries, in spiritual conception. They each con¬ 
ceived (inspired by the Spirit) the idea that in time 
the Infinite would produce a Racial Man, one 
who would understand His place and responsibility 
in the universe. They saw that by the order of 
spiritual things He must come. I and my fellow 
believers in the Christian faith feel that we know 
that He did come. So now we know just what a 
Real Man is. The pagan philosophers, not having 
the inner vision so clearly, sought in all (to them) 
conceivable ways to bring the children of the Race 
to some higher standard of mind and resultant 
conduct. One, at least, saw clearly enough to 


14 


Which Temple Ye Are 

join with these Hebrew prophets in foretelling 
that a Just One must eventually be bom of men, 
who would be competent to set all wrongs right, 
make all crooked places straight. This hope was 
well founded, for some three or four centuries later, 
this Just One came. A century before this Just 
One, whom Plato foretold, hung upon the Cross, 
Virgil, the poet-seer, sung in prophetic strain: 

“ The Child shall purge 

Our guilt stains out and free the land from dread, 

How all things joy to greet the rising Age.” 

Did He redeem the people from error? Has He 
set all wrongs right? Are all stains purged out 
as yet? Alas, it does not seem to have been 
sufficient that He came! Nor was it all-potential 
that He showed men how a Just Man should live, 
aye, and die if need be. It did not seem to be 
convincing enough to sinful men that He laid down 
a faultless code of ethics by which men should 
learn to live sanely. The awful failure of the Just 
One to effect this cure is very discouraging to 
Those of the Faith. The prophets and philosophers 
and poet-seers were correct as to His coming, but 
as to setting the world right, can any one argue 
that it has been accomplished as yet? Well has 
the poet sung, “God’s in His heaven, All’s right 
with the world,” but we must read those lines 
through a poet’s eye, an eye that often looks past 
the near into the far, past the warp and woof to 


Christians 


i5 


the beautifully wrought, finished fabric. Mostly 
all of us must look closely to the weaving of our 
small piece to see that it is well done. We are 
not all joyous-throated skylarks, rising, and sing¬ 
ing heavenward. To do the simple duty really 
well is high exercise of soul. It is in this humble 
endeavour that we often sadly cry, Can God make 
beauty out of the tangled threads of our too faulty 
workmanship? 

We believe that the Son of Man came, was per¬ 
fected by the things which He suffered, showed 
His perfected manhood to the children of men, 
taught His code of ethics. He did not fit in with 
the ritualistic thought-trend of His native contem¬ 
poraries, so they crucified Him on a cross with 
other troublesome persons. But “God’s in His 
heaven, All’s right with the world.” So we may 
look with the poet’s eye on this humiliating failure 
of the Man, Jesus of Nazareth, being as but the 
victorious entrance to the greatest, vastest, of 
dual thrones. He was raised to the Throne of 
Christ Jesus the Redeemer. His Kingdom is in 
Heaven, and on Earth. So tremendous was this 
event that the sympathetic mother-earth draped 
herself in night and shivered for the guilt of her 
poor foolish children. The last despairing cry of 
the Man Jesus had arisen to High Heaven; the 
answer came in the rending of the veil of the typical 
temple. God had not forsaken the Son of Man; 
He had translated Him into His wider kingdom. 


i6 


Which Temple Ye Are 


The World Tragedy was over. He must needs die 
to complete the type of the old law of oblation; to 
satisfy the ritualistic trend of this people. The 
rending of the veil began a new era in manhood. 
Hereafter a man shall stand or fall by the standard 
of the code of Jesus Christ , the Saviour of Mankind. 
To keep that code is to be a Christian. There is 
no other law under heaven whereby a soul may 
live eternally. And as this code pertained almost 
entirely to our relations between and towards one 
another, it is one of the gravest and most deadly 
of mistakes to allow any other class of thought to 
force itself in between our study of this code, and 
our hope of continued life. Dogma never saved 
a soul’s life; it never will, it is unscriptural as well 
as unscientific to believe this foolishness. The 
Jews who were steeped in the tempestuous waters 
of dogma, marvelled that Jesus should speak with 
such assurance. But He answered them thus: 
“My teaching is not mine but His that sent me. 
If any man willeth to do His will he shall know 
of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I 
speak from Myself. ” So it would seem as though 
one must first do the will of God as Christ taught 
it, before he can have a clear vision of what true 
teaching really is. But for a sane man who has 
never studied or followed the teaching of Jesus the 
Christ to begin his career of eternal life by the 
study of a tedious dissertation on creeds, is incon¬ 
ceivable folly. As though a child should not eat 


Christians 


i7 


until he understood thoroughly his digestive organs 
and the chemical properties of his food, and the 
probability of such and such foods being suitable, 
or as regards their proving to be easily assimilated 
by his system. Christ said that He was the 
Bread of Life. He also said that we must become 
as little children. 

To return—we find that a pagan state is com¬ 
posed of persons who worship the great God 
through some of His (to them) most noticeable 
creations. Each individual mind is an integral 
part of this explanatory definition regarding their 
state. It is really the touch-point between such 
souls, and between such souls and their God. If 
you read their history carefully you will find I 
think, without exception, that their intercourse 
between themselves, and between themselves and 
other such people, was entirely influenced by this 
one governing principle; that is, their mental 
vision of their relation between themselves and 
that Influence and Power which they found in a 
measure concrete in certain natural objects. The 
crudest study of mythology tells us this. They 
have also immortalized those fellow-beings who 
most nearly stood for the (at the time) Ideal Man, 
the Superman. They strove to emulate him. 
The poets sang their most heroic epics of his doings. 
We can only conceive of God as we can read His 
hand in His created objects. The sun and moon 
arose with god-like precision and regularity, there- 


18 Which Temple Ye Are 

fore they were gods, etc. There must be motherly 
influences that breathed upon them and kissed 
them so tenderly in the aerial world above them; 
thus we may account for the “Queen of heaven,” 
etc. 

Diogenes has immortalized the fact, that philo¬ 
sophy is not physical comfort or sensual luxury. 
Others of these early schools have striven to teach 
that true philosophy lay only in culture and char¬ 
acter. The effect of this wise teaching permeated 
the early Christian Church, and is a fully accepted 
theory to-day. Some other schools of philosophy 
were at the two poles of truth, and neither quite 
in the right place. The Stoics said, “A man must 
not demand, nor should he require, or desire pleas¬ 
ant sensations, and must not recognize either pain 
or joy in himself, as it were weakness to do so.” 
The Epicurean said, “A man had better live in a 
way that would yield him all the pleasantest sen¬ 
sations that are conceivable. That to avoid all 
pain, and to obtain all possible sensuous enjoyment 
was the greatest good; that it were foolish to do 
otherwise.” Into this field, into which these 
divers beliefs and philosophies, pagan, and well- 
nigh empty Jewish ritualistic religions had been 
incorporated until it was a strange conglomerate 
of a semi-religious mass of a many-hued mental 
character, came another Sower of seed. He sowed 
His good, absolutely perfect seed; and covering it 
in with careful hand, left it to grow, and went away 


Christians 


19 


for a while. The watchers said, “Master, some one 
hath sown tares also, shall we weed them out?” 
He said, “No! let the good and bad grow together 
until the time of the harvest. ” This field of wheat 
and tares has been growing together for nearly two 
thousand years, and the time of the harvest is 
nearing—is now. Already we see the separating 
process beginning. The good seed shall be found 
to have produced splendid ethics, and splendid 
desire in man to follow theory by conduct in keep¬ 
ing with this standard of theoretical ethics. The 
tares shall be cast out from the beneficent field of 
wheat. This is now being done. All these tares 
shall eventually be cast out into the fire that they 
reproduce no more for ever. The Good Sower did 
not forget His field. Some say to-day, as was 
foretold, “My Lord tarrieth.” Does He tarry? 
Our Lord Christ is in absolute oneness with His 
Father, therefore He never hasteneth nor does He 
tarry. He said He would come for the harvest, 
and the harvest is beginning; therefore He is here. 
Those who hope for His coming may realize their 
hope; those who fear His coming have reason now 
for their fear. 

If we cling persistently to the teaching of the 
Founder of our Faith—and why in all reason 
should we not do so?—and allow nothing else of 
preconceived, or shall we say hereditary, character 
to become mixed in with it, perhaps some of us 
will be amazed to find just where we each stand 


20 


Which Temple Ye Are 


under this separating examination. We find that 
the teaching of Christ Jesus is a great kindly search¬ 
light which untiringly throws out its rays of hope 
to men: we, who are now struggling for our very 
eternal lives from out the cruel rocks of human 
made dogmas, the fogs of our pernicious customs, 
and the wild waters of useless fanaticism. We 
have a perfectly safe life-line if we choose to grasp 
it, viz., the teaching of Jesus, the Redeemer of 
men’s souls—aye, and bodies. This is quite 
sufficient without any person’s carefully wrought 
out amplifications. A Christian can have no 
reasonable excuse for writing or preaching on 
religious subjects excepting to draw the attention 
of his fellows to what the Founder of the Faith 
Himself taught. ‘‘Back to Christ” must be the 
motto of all religious literature or preaching. “ In 
His name ” must be the motto of all workers, of all 
sorts and conditions. Sometimes I feel like wish¬ 
ing that all the written words in this planet, espe¬ 
cially in our Empire, save only His, could be hidden 
from us for a decade. Perhaps some of us would 
then begin to get a faint glimmering by that time, 
of just what He did teach as to the way to obtain 
eternal life; as to what it is to be fitting temples 
of God. We should begin to see dimly that 
spiritual economies can in no wise be separated 
from social and political economies. We should 
find that the examination of our attitude towards 
each other is the only judgment that shall find us 


Christians 


21 


wanting or true. Of course, I am speaking only to 
those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, or think 
that they do. Now, the watchers are not even 
dimly seen by us, in our befogged vision, but they 
are amongst us nevertheless, seeing into our every 
intention, even more than our every action. The 
Sower of the good seed has returned as He promised. 
He remains for the present just behind a very thin 
veil. He is superintending the operation of 
separating the wheat from the tares, and freeing 
it from all chaff. All honour to the many human 
souls who are patiently endeavouring to assist 
the watchers and their (and our) Master in the 
separating and sorting process. May God in His 
redeeming mercy see fit to grant them skill! 

And so we who call ourselves Christians, believe 
that this Real Man came, first, some two thousand 
years ago; this Sower of the good seed. He had 
been long hoped for. Some wise men from the 
East came, thinking to find Him underneath where 
the star should lead. The wise men found Him 
there. He had not tarried, nor had He hastened. 
Once more the star stands sentinel. This time it 
stands sentinel over our nation, this island country 
whose united Church and State surely is the natal 
place of the New Kingdom, this adopted home of 
the Christian faith, this successor of the Old Law. 
What shall we do with this Christ ? Last time He 
appeared we crucified Him. But this time the 
question is not what shall we do with Him, but 


22 


Which Temple Ye Are 


what will He do with us? This is the one burning 
religious question of Christendom to-day. Shall 
we call upon the rocks to fall upon us, or shall we go 
to meet Him with great rejoicing? When we in 
our hearts acknowledge that this Real Man came, 
then does our judgment begin. Do we not sol¬ 
emnly chant, “ We believe that thou shalt come to 
be our judge.” Also, “ O Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sins of the world; Have mercy upon us. ” 
When we examine ourselves by the light of His 
teaching we shall surely be ready to cry not only 
with the lips but from our soul agony, ‘‘Have 
mercy upon us!” When we acknowledge Him, 
not only does our personal examination begin, but 
our personal responsibility is augmented. We 
may already have been faithful workers in some 
favourite social scheme, or we may have worked in 
a highly moral patriotic spirit for the improvement 
of the individual, in order that we may lift the 
nation, in order hat we may be supreme as a 
nation. This spirit must be subjected to the fires 
of purification. It must be made free from selfish 
motives and instincts. This will cause much 
sincere heart searching, but if we are to be a Christ¬ 
ian people, in deed, as well as in word, we must 
submit to those crucial fires. Christ must first 
judge us, then free us from our sins. A nation 
cannot sin of itself. A depraved nation is, of 
course, a united whole of a number of depraved 
men. A strong righteous State is composed of 


Christians 


23 


“Men, high-minded men, who know their rights, 
and knowing dare maintain.” The State of 
Christendom should in all reason be composed of 
“Men, Christlike men, who know His will, and 
knowing dare maintain.” Do any of us dare 
maintain the actual high standard of Christ’s 
regime? No need to ask. Then is Christendom 
Christian? That is a question that we are com¬ 
pelled to ask. We feel compelled to ask another 
question regarding our arrogant Christendom. Is 
she ashamed of her Founder and His regime ? The 
clergy of all shades and religions, and also laymen, 
are expected to write or talk about religion in either 
a technical or emotional manner. This is their 
speciality. If we might enter the Eternal Avenue 
via this or that clergyman, pastor, or layman’s 
vicarious acknowledgment of Christ, it might be 
easier for us; but we cannot do this. But, does 
the man in his office, in his shop, or market, or the 
political or popular journalist, or the man in any 
public vocation, consult with his client, customer, 
buyer, seller, or reader, as to what bearing the 
transactions, events, or topics, will have on the 
coming of the Kingdom of Heaven? Would we 
dare to bring up the subject, at least without an 
apology? Are we ashamed of the Christian 
principle? Are we ashamed to discuss these vital 
subjects in a commonplace, everyday, and wholly 
rational way? So we ask, Is Christendom ashamed 
of true Christianity? 


24 


Which Temple Ye Are 


She stands self-convicted of one of two things by 
this silence regarding the most important constitu¬ 
tional issue of the day. She convicts herself of, 
either being ashamed of the Founder of our Faith 
and the regime of His coming Kingdom, or, she is 
ashamed of herself in the face of this standard of 
ethics, this “Do unto others as ye would have 
them do to you,” this “Bear ye one another’s 
burdens.” These commands hurt like a knife 
when we apply them to everyday transactions 
and conduct and theory. So we tacitly agree to 
keep them well out of sight in everyday life, and 
fetch them out on a Sunday for a little soothing 
spiritual exercise for our half-paralyzed souls; and 
we piously call ourselves Christians! Blessed 
Sunday service that calls our attention to spiritual 
matters, at least, one day in seven! Blessed little 
reminders that come to us at times throughout the 
week in the way of evening service, prayer, etc.! 
Some of us, I know, are not ashamed of the mission 
of the Redeemer; but nearly all of us should be 
ashamed of our poor discipleship. I rather believe 
that the latter reason is the true cause of our silence; 
at least, I feel that my own guilt lies mostly there. 
One, if he be sensitive, does shrink from the Sermon 
on the Mount as if it were scorching fire; it is a 
hard thing to face and live. So we like to study 
it by proxy, and allow our indulgent pastors to 
deal us out a little at a time at the Sunday service, 
or read a little occasionally in some approved 


Christians 


25 


religious book. One would think that this thesis 
of Christ were dynamite. Is it spiritual dynamite ? 
Would it were applied and fired by the Spirit of 
Conviction, so as to blow to atoms much that we 
now count dear, but which is in a Christian state, 
a disgraceful shame! 

We must never, however, lose sight of any exten¬ 
uating circumstances in regard to our guilty shame, 
or we should become too much discouraged, and we 
should faint by the way. We do feel our weakness 
so much at times that we really pity ourselves. So 
does our elder Brother pity us all the time. We 
may be relieved to know that He can be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities, and has been 
tempted in all points as we are tempted. 

We may well believe that sleepy indifference to 
Christ’s authoritative teaching is largely due to our 
present day complicated business and social life. 
Our mode of life leaves little time, or quiet, for the 
meditation that is required to adjust the mind 
of mankind to saner determinations. The near 
always rises large before us, and often a small 
object hides from our vision a chain of sunlighted 
mountain peaks. And so our small, near day is 
hiding from us the radiance of the eternal day to 
be attained. 

If social reform, alone, is the ultimate of our 
efforts, we shall fail. If social reform is approached 
with the idea, first, of bringing about that con¬ 
dition wherein each human being may be clothed 


26 


Which Temple Ye Are 


and fed and made whole in body; and then, in 
order that we may simplify our mode of living in 
such a way as to have reasonable time and oppor¬ 
tunity to make provision wisely and sanely for our 
souls also; shall we fail then? We shall by a calm 
study find that the teaching of Jesus is the sanest, 
the most scientific and far-seeing reach of thought 
on social matters that has yet been, or can be, con¬ 
ceived of. We shall find that the fires which now 
scorch us into an ignominious silence concerning 
these teachings are but the cleansing fires which 
are calculated to make us pure in heart so that we 
may see God more nearly as Jesus saw Him. If 
dynamite some of them be, let us use them, not 
to destroy our fellows, but to burst asunder some 
of our rock-incrusted institutions. Satan is ever 
present striving to keep our minds in painful 
activity on lesser things to the exclusion of holier 
thoughts. 

I am told that in commercial houses, at times 
affairs become so hopelessly muddled that they 
cannot possibly be straightened out by the man¬ 
agers themselves. That is reasonable, as they 
have themselves caused or made the trouble. I 
am given to understand that an expert is called in 
who carefully and judicially analyzes the business 
methods and makes many changes regardless of the 
firm’s opinion or desire. He often brings success 
out of that which had seemed a complete failure. 
I wish we could allow an expert to take a strong 


Christians 


27 


wise hand in our nation to-day and make many 
changes regardless of prejudice or personality. 
If we were really a Christian people we would ask 
the Master of our lives to come in and do this for 
us. But I doubt whether we should welcome Him 
cordially. The Father gave Him all authority in 
Heaven and on earth. He is now engaged in this 
expert work, whether we want Him or not; if we 
have a little spare time at our command, we may 
well look about us at strange things happening to 
the very foundations of our social, religious, and 
political structure. 

The Father has given the kingdoms of the world, 
to be in the end, Christ’s. If we be really Christ¬ 
ians we are helping to bring it about. If Mam¬ 
mon is our ruler, then by all means let us adore 
him and obey all of his iniquitously selfish com¬ 
mands. If Christ Jesus is to be our ruler, let us 
by all means adore Him and obey His unselfish 
and life-preserving commands. We cannot serve 
both. He warned us of this double dealing ages 
ago, with prophetic intuition. By our fruits shall 
we be known. “Do men gather grapes of thorns, 
or figs of thistles?” “Not every one that saith 
unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom 
of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
who is in Heaven.” Unto some who do mighty 
works He will say, “I never knew you: depart 
from me, ye that work iniquity. ” 

We cannot too often impress upon ourselves 


28 


Which Temple Ye Are 


and our fellow human beings of to-day, especially 
those of the Faith, that Christ’s Kingdom is 
coming, and coming now. Who, that reads pro¬ 
phecy and the trend of modern thought, can deny 
that unusual upheavals in world thought are taking 
place: that gigantic moral struggles are now in 
process? Dogmatic religion and hereditary cus¬ 
toms, which have become rigid as fixed laws, are 
making unprecedented efforts to retain their 
strangling clasp on awakening, emancipating 
humanity. Unprecedented, because it is wholly 
a moral mental struggle. Satan has long enough 
kept these false and, in themselves, trivial, form¬ 
ulas and customs, and hereditary coarse greedi¬ 
nesses, playing about with illusive false lights, and 
with fantastic paraphernalia which at once awe 
and captivate the unsophisticated believer. And 
so we go sleepily on through the passing years. 
We are really to be pitied. 

The inequality of the distribution of the earth’s 
products makes a condition of strained effort on 
the part of the mass of Christendom so great, that 
they mostly forget that there is a God, or that He 
ever had a Beloved Perfected Son, or that we were 
ever commanded to listen to Him and live, or 
refuse to hear Him and die. The ingenuity of the 
Satanic reign is one of the most interesting of his¬ 
toric subjects. The holy wars, the trifling differ¬ 
ences of opinion on certain religious non-essentials, 
the lust of power, the lust of greed, the pressing 


Christians 


29 


need of the poor, the ambitions and attractions 
of the mass, the hateful arrogance of our more 
favoured people, the wonderful intricacies of 
society life, this overstrain of nearly every body— 
these things veil our vision, hide realities, hinder 
the Kingdom of Heaven, and prevent us from 
being worthy of our name as a religious nation. 

It would be a good exercise of mind if we were 
each to endeavour to acquire a knowledge of the 
different great schemes of religion, such as Bud¬ 
dhism, the Moslem faith, or any of the old pagan 
religions, and see if there is to be found one that 
better fits our real belief. If we find one that we 
feel that we can fully endorse, and live up to, and 
thus obtain eternal life, by all means let us hasten 
to adopt it. If we, by chance, should thus make 
ourselves acquainted with Christianity, and find 
in it that which appeals to our highest, noblest 
instincts, as the one true way to eternal life, then 
why do we not adopt the teaching of the Founder? 
If we be a pagan people let us at once set up our 
gods; but, if we be a Christian people, let us at 
once set up the Christ. “And I, if I be lifted up 
from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.” 
Gentlemen in our land do not countenance cheating 
at games of any sort. May a Christian be untrue 
to his faith with impunity? Himself said, “I 
will profess I never knew you.” 

The disciples of Christ Jesus were first called 
Christians in Antioch, and by courtesy, at least, 


30 


Which Temple Ye Are 


we are called by the same name to-day. Perhaps 
a careful study of the gospels, or more especially 
the Acts of the Apostles, will assist us in judging 
whether we deserve the name at all. Is our partial 
failure only because we are so pressed with need, 
or routine, or lethargy, or all of these? If we could 
only awaken I believe many of us would find that 
we do honour and love Him. Some of us would 
know that we would rather die, as many of our 
forefathers have done, than lose our hope in our 
Saviour, or willingly grow lax in our fealty to Him. 
Oh! I do believe that many of us, perhaps nearly 
all of us, do love the memory of the Christ-child, 
the Beloved of the Father. We do believe that in 
some splendid way He died for us and rose again 
that He might sit on the right hand of His Father; 
and thus in time fulfil every iota of His mission, 
for which He came into the world, “to save his 
people from their sins.” But it would be eternal 
Christmas in the soul really to awaken to the 
fulness of the Christian faith. 

“Let our lives breathe the song that is borne on the air, 

Let us take the good news of His love everywhere, 

Cheer the sad and oppressed, reach a kind helping hand; 

Go ye forth at the King’s command. 

“Let the world learn the song ringing far on the air, 

Let it waken sweet hopes that shall banish despair, 

Let it hush every strife, let it end every war, 

Jesus reigns and for evermore. ” 


E. E. Hewitt. 


CHAPTER |III 

11 SHALL HE DO ALSO” 

“I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I 
do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; 
because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in 
my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the 
Son.” John xiv. 12-13. 

“And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my 
name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new 
tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any 
deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands 
on the sick, and they shall recover.” Mark xvi. 17-18. 

“And, being assembled together with them, he charged them 
not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the 
Father, which said he, ye heard from me: for John indeed bap¬ 
tized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not 
many days hence.... But ye shall receive power, when the 
Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses both 
in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the utter¬ 
most parts of the earth. ” Acts i. 4-8. 

“And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were 
all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven 
a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the 
house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them 
tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one 
of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began 
to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 
. . . And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and 
signs were done through the Apostles. And all that believed 

3i 


32 


Which Temple Ye Are 


were together, and had all things common; and they sold their 
possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any 
man had need. And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one 
accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their 
food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and 
having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to them 
day by day those that were being saved.” Acts ii. 1-4, 43-47. 


E have been quoting, as briefly as we may, 



V V a few passages which serve well enough 
to throw a little light on the measure of spiritual 
power possessed, not only by the first Apostles, 
but also by the first disciples. We find that they 
taught the Christhood of Jesus of Nazareth and 
also obeyed the instructions and commands which 
He gave to them. They believed the promises 
which He made to them, and so obtained the 
powers promised. This unique company, the 
ridiculing, jest-loving people of Antioch, called, in 
derision, Christians, or followers of this new 
religious leader, who was said to be the Christ, the 
Great One, who had long been expected by the 
Jews. Were this jest-loving people still in existence, 
we think that they would have yet greater reason 
for their ridiculing mirth. What an irony the 
name Christian has become in its popular accept¬ 
ance! If one were to ask a nominal Christian, as 
Paul questioned some men at Ephesus, “Did ye 
receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed? ” I feel 
assured that he would receive much the same 
answer, “Nay, we did not so much as hear whether 
there is a Holy Ghost.” Afterwards the Ephe- 


11 Shall He Do Also” 


33 


sians received this gift. Afterwards shall we, 
think you? Our efforts will be small and poor 
until thus endowed with strength from on high. 
This we must obtain. Christ promised this 
endowment to His disciples, bidding them wait for 
it. He said, “I send forth the promise of my 
Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city, until 
ye be clothed with power from on high.” To 
apply this to our day, we should take it as an 
instruction for us to remain within the organized 
Christian Church, and fit ourselves to receive this 
power to work. After we have received this gift 
we shall have direct guidance in our efforts. We 
have no intimation that Christ gave up the popular 
temple service, though it had become an almost 
empty shell. But the limitations of its incrusted 
institutions did not limit Him, He was greater than 
they. So should we be, and shall be presently, I 
hope. These disciples spoke with new tongues, 
and to each people in the language that they could 
best understand. If this phenomenal gift were to 
descend upon us now, as a Church, it would doubt¬ 
less bestow a variety of gifts. Paul tells us 

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same 
spirit. And there are diversities of ministrations, and 
the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings, 
but the same God, who worketh all things in all. But 
to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit 
to profit withal. For to one is given through the 
Spirit the word of wisdom; and to another the word 


3 


34 


Which Temple Ye Are 


of knowledge, to another faith, and to another gifts 
of healings, and to another workings of miracles; and 
to another prophecy; and to another discerning of 
spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; and to 
another interpretations of tongues; but all these 
worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each 
one severally even as he will.” 

We should be able to draw from this, and from 
what is contained in the second chapter of the 
Acts of the Apostles, that we are to have these 
many gifts bestowed upon us as a Church, in the 
last days. We are still in the last days, who would 
deny it? We must not, however, fall into the 
error of thinking that no one to-day is a recipient 
of spiritual gifts. All of us could with little effort 
recall to mind the strange rise to beneficent in¬ 
fluence of many persons all along the centuries, 
since these words were written. And shall we say 
that no one is so endowed to-day? We fall into the 
impudent error too readily to-day, of crediting men 
with having great powers above other men, for¬ 
getting that great endowments are always Spirit 
born. It is one of the satanic handicaps to our 
usefulness. We feel that we are weak and unfit 
for some office which we do so desire to perform, 
so we sit down and refuse to try. If we truly feel 
called to some form of usefulness, why do we not 
drop this handicap, and ask for the gift of the Spirit, 
to give us the required wisdom, strength, and— 
most of all—courage, to perform it? This matter 


“ Shall He Do Also ” 


35 


of our attitude towards the Spirit of God is serious, 
it is of the very gravest moment. We are warned 
not to quench the Spirit. Christ was at His ex¬ 
treme of severity with those who blasphemed the 
Holy Spirit. Ananias and Sapphira were stricken 
with death for attempting to deceive the Holy 
Spirit. There is in the Apostolic teaching, the 
most emphasised and frequent teaching regarding 
the office of the Holy Spirit. I am not sure that 
I understand why we ignore the presence and refuse 
the gifts of this so desirable Guest. Are we willing 
to receive Him? Paul tells us 

“ So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, 
to live after the flesh; for if ye live after the flesh, ye 
must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds 
of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, these are Sons of God. And in like 
manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we 
know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit 
himself maketh intercession for us with groanings 
which cannot be uttered; and he that searcheth the 
hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because 
he maketh intercession for the saints according to the 
will of God.” 

And the last call from our Redeemer from out His 
hidden throne to us was, “And the Spirit and the 
bride say come.” Jesus Christ is our kindly 
Elder Brother, our King; and the Holy Spirit is 
our motherly source of guidance and wisdom and 


36 


Which Temple Ye Are 


courageous strength, but under the direction of our 
King, Jesus Christ. These are the Father’s loving 
and wise gifts to us, that we may be able to be 
useful to our fellows in this life, at least, and that 
we may eventually become deathless Sons of God. 
And we do not seem to desire these illustrious 
Guests, nor their blessed gifts! 

We find that after the disciples received the gift 
of the Spirit, they became a different sort of factor 
in the State. We find that they could, and did, 
do many wonderful things. We find that all that 
believed were together, and had all things common, 
and they sold their possessions and goods, and 
parted them to all according as any man had need. 
We are told that they had favour with all the 
people. Is this the same as modern Communism? 
I think not quite. It certainly contains all that is 
good in modern Communism, but it did not abolish 
the family, or religion, or nationality. Property 
was not abolished, but held for the common good. 
The system was a signal success, but after some 
three hundred years of its workings, we find that 
its success had bred arrogant desire for greater in¬ 
fluence. The Sower of Tares had been busy, and 
the field was becoming attractive and worldly. The 
wily Emperor of Rome was getting jealous of the 
united strength, and beneficent influence, of this 
numerous people. He, pretending to affiliate with 
them, really absorbed them. Thus began the 
historic Church of Rome. If we read carefully, 


“ Shall He Do Also ” 


37 


and without bias either way, the history of the 
result of this union, we shall not be left in much 
doubt as to whether the power of the Spirit accom¬ 
panied it or not. As we have before noted, many, 
all down the centuries, have given evidence of 
possessing a measure of this power; but the Church 
as a popular organization certainly lost it. We 
should be loth to ascribe to Christ or the Holy 
Spirit the inhuman atrocities that have been 
abundantly recorded of her. Those whom we 
think of as being Spirit-endowed, have always been 
those who were striving to bring the idolatrous 
organization back to her primitive purity. The 
little leaven was left in the flour, which was to 
leaven the whole lump later on. 

We shall not follow the history of the fallen 
Church, or stop to take note of the various men and 
movements that have from time to time been the 
means of remedying some, nay many, of the evils 
of the Church which was not a Christlike institu¬ 
tion, but a conglomerate mass of beliefs and usages. 
What we do wish to do is to ascertain just where 
we, as professed Christians, at present stand in 
comparison and relation with this early and suc¬ 
cessful Church of the first century. We find it to 
be right conduct to remain in the popular, and very 
much rectified Church of Christ (in its many forms) 
until we be endowed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. 
Then we should be able to present the Truth as it is 
in Christ Jesus to each soul in such a manner as is 


38 


Which Temple Ye Are 


best suited to his capacity, and perhaps prejudice. 
Then to follow the spirit of the teaching we should 
give to each soul the same opportunity to live and 
develop itself that our best citizens now enjoy. 
Then, each man would know the Truth and no one 
would need to teach his brother: but we cannot 
see that it would do away with the public service 
of offering united praise and prayer to the Most 
High. Far from it. There would then be fulness 
of life physically, intellectually, and most of all, 
spiritually. No man would sadly complain “I 
hunger” for want of either class of satisfying 
food. 

With joy we note the significant and tense 
struggle which is now taking place between the 
friends and foes of this uplifting movement. This 
is the one political and doctrinal point on which 
we shall judge ourselves as to whether we be 
Christians or not. The Jews expected a Saviour 
who should bring them great national splendour. 
Christ came teaching purity in the individual, as 
the unit of the State. The Jews, perhaps confus¬ 
ing the prophecies concerning His first and final 
appearance, were disappointed, and jealous for 
their ritualistic State Church. So they crucified 
Him. They did not want Him. Are we to-day 
entirely innocent of this crucifixion? If we, with¬ 
out flourishing of trumpets, could have all wrongs 
righted at once, do we honestly want it? At the 
last analysis it certainly comes to this, that if we 


“Shall He Do Also” 


39 


are indifferently and passively acquiescing in the 
degeneracy, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, 
of our race, we are tacitly assisting at the fresh 
crucifixion of our Lord. We may be assured that 
we are adding to His long term of “Bearing our 
sorrows. ’* Do we want these Godlike endowments 
that we are heirs to? Do we want seasons of 
refreshing from the presence of the Lord? Aye, 
I ask, do we want this Man to rule over us? Do 
we want Jesus the Christ whom the heavens must 
hold until the times of restoration of all things? 
Do we want this restoration? Do we want the 
Spirit from on High? Paul was moved to exhort 
the Church of his day, that Christ had indeed come. 
He most carefully argues it throughout, and closes 
with these words of warning which we might do 
well to heed to-day. “Beware therefore, lest that 
come upon you which is spoken in the prophets: 
Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish; for 
I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall 
in no wise believe, if one declare it unto you.” 

If we are called Christians, it does not signify 
that we wear Christian clothing or build Christian 
houses, or eat Christian food, or use Christian 
coins, or that we are physically different to non- 
Christian persons. But whether we be worthy to 
bear this significant name or not does depend 
wholly on whether we follow the teachings, and 
obey the commands, of the Originator of our Faith. 
Nothing else bears on the subject in the slightest. 


4 o 


Which Temple Ye Are 


The demons knew, and believed, that Jesus was the 
Christ. We may share this sort of belief, and yet, 
like them, be quite unworthy to bear His name. 
To be a Christian indeed, is to see to it that the 
more unfortunate brothers and sisters of Christ are 
not so cruelly situated. The dirtiest, coldest, 
most hungry and degenerate little brother or sister 
of Christ is very dear to Him. We who are more 
fortunate must see to it that these are as comfort¬ 
able as we are, that they are fed, clothed, and in 
sanitary homes; that their minds and spirits shall 
have the same opportunity of development that we 
more fortunate ones now enjoy. We cannot hope 
for the restoration of mental and spiritual degen¬ 
eracy, before the body is reinforced by proper 
treatment. Also we cannot hope to impress such 
with our good influence, until we ourselves become 
more Christlike. It is useless to offer The Faith 
to them, or indeed to any one, without the force 
of the Christian life accompanying it. To-day, 
we cannot astonish the suffering or unbelieving 
ones into belief, by saying, Arise, take up thy bed, 
and walk. Alas, we have not these gifts, and what 
is sadder, we do not seem to want or expect them. 
Can we ask for an overwhelming Pentecost while 
we have columns about starvation, and the “idle 
rich,” in our journals? Allow me to quote from 
a short article, in a popular daily paper, which 
appeared during the week previous to the taking 
of the census: 


“Shall He Do Also” 


4i 


“ During the week the police will be provided with 
special forms for the task of enumerating the homeless. 
The instructions to each constable are to enter particu¬ 
lars of every person within the limits of his night beat 
who passes the night of Sunday, April 2 [1911], in a 
bam, shed, kiln, etc., under a railway arch or on stairs 
accessible to the public, or wandering without a 
shelter.” 

May God in His mercy pity a Christian people 
that can passively allow this misery to exist! 
If we were to ask in His name that the Spirit might 
descend upon us, I much fear we should in reply 
hear the condemning answer issuing from the 
Throne, “Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of 
these least, ye did it not unto me. I never knew 
you. ” The gift of the Spirit is not for the selfishly 
indulgent, but for those only who are endeavouring 
to do the will of the Father. 

Still, we must hope for this gift. We do already 
see much radical improvement in our attitude 
towards those less fortunate than ourselves. 
Believe me, if not me, do believe the Master’s 
teaching, that this is not a question of doctrinal 
prejudice, or party politics, or individual opinion, 
but it is an individual judgment which is now tak¬ 
ing place between a man and his Maker. In this 
judgment we are separated one from another. We 
throw our efforts in the balance, either for, or 
against, the new Kingdom of the Living Christ. 
We are either actively helping in the redemptive 


42 


Which Temple Ye Are 


work, or we are either actively or passively help¬ 
ing the destroyer of men’s souls. The Spirit will 
assist us in our weakness, but never in our sinning. 
We know that we cannot, at once, serve God and 
the Selfish Principle. It is inevitable that we work 
for one, or the other; since we are made by our 
Creator, responsible beings. 

We may, at times, wonder why we were launched 
into this life, so faulty, so weak, so seemingly 
inadequate, for the situation accompanying our 
probationary earth life. We ask why, oh why, 
did not the All-Pitiful make us better, wiser 
children? Why are my poor efforts of importance 
to the All-Powerful? Why should I ask or need 
gifts of power when God is All-Sufficient? Some¬ 
times we have a feeling of rebellion, not unmixed 
with arrogant fault-finding towards our Creator, 
in this line. I think in this case we may safely 
conclude that our vision is too limited. We child¬ 
ren of the kindergarten are so shortsighted, so 
uncultured in scientific soul growth, that we can 
only conceive such a very small portion of the 
complete plans and creations of the Infinite. We 
see only a broken patch of the (I am sure) won- 
drously beautiful whole. In one way, perhaps our 
efforts towards the harmonious workings of the 
whole may be, and are, weak and small, quite 
inadequate for much result; but, when we try 
to measure our own individual importance in 
God’s plan, we must fail. Finite cannot measure 


“Shall He Do Also” 


43 


infinite. A tiny part may not lawfully be taken as 
a perfect revelation of the whole. So, when we 
feel rebellious and fault-finding with the workings 
of God’s creations, we do but show forth our arro¬ 
gant ignorance. Arrogance is always—shall we 
say—the impure vapour arising from ignorance. 
Musicians know that there are discords in music 
which help to produce most dramatically fine effects 
on the completed whole. They also know that 
some of the most sadly melodious effects are pro¬ 
duced by the minor strains. But, these crashes 
of discord and wails of unworded sorrow are but 
echoes of the grand harmony of the greatest of all 
themes, the song of human life, the song of a 
human soul. Out of the discordant crashing and 
heavily chorded passages of my life, will, I know, 
come victory, sometime, somewhere, somehow. 
Out of the minor wails and sorrowful cadences of 
my sin-sick soul, will come peace, at the end of 
the day, perhaps much sooner than I think. 
Tennyson tells us, quoting another poet, that 
“A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering 
happier things. ” Is it not just as true, and quite 
as poetical in idea, to say that happier days are 
crowned, by remembering sorrows flown? How 
shall we measure our after-joy if we have had no 
sorrow? If we have had no discordant passages, 
how shall we value that ‘‘Peace of God which 
passeth all understanding”? It is for us to attain 
to this so desirable peace of soul. Let us pray to 


44 


Which Temple Ye Are 


be saved from the ignoble fault of petty criticism 
of God’s plans. 

If one having heard of Westminster Abbey were 
to conclude that he would like to see it for himself, 
he would of course journey thither. For our pur¬ 
pose we may suppose this person to be one of a not 
infrequent type, a man of narrow vision and petty 
prejudice. This man comes, gives to the Abbey a 
hurried sketchy glance, and soon catches sight of 
the ugly and grotesque gargoyles over the entrance. 
On these he turns his magnifying glass—also his 
wrath. He is filled with disgust and disappoint¬ 
ment. He has seen enough. He turns his back 
on it and refuses to enter this grand old historic 
pile, this sacred place where our loved heroes lie in 
state. He goes away in rebellious anger with little 
more than the grotesque gargoyles in his eye. Per¬ 
haps it is as well so, for what has so petty a spirit 
in common with those grand souls, whose bodies 
are lying within the Abbey walls? He would 
probably classify and valuate the marble, and com¬ 
plain about the decaying state of the stone. But 
no thrill of emotion would force the tears to flow 
from out his stony, critical eye. Another person 
may be determined to view some notable, splen¬ 
didly wrought picture of great beauty and meaning. 
He too brings his magnifying glass, and on enter¬ 
ing the room immediately focuses it on some small 
part of this priceless treasure. He thus runs his 
eye over the picture bit by bit, he does it very 


‘‘Shall He Do Also” 


45 


conscientiously and carefully. Then he too walks 
away in disgusted disappointment. He does not 
so much as turn his head as he leaves the room. 
Oh, if he had only got a real glimpse of the whole, 
as a united idealistic scheme, how quickly he would 
have changed his attitude—that is if he were 
capable of appreciating its meaning and beauty! 
A small patch of paint magnified is ugly enough. 
We see Art with such perception as we are able 
to take to it. Are these illustrations far-fetched? 
Perhaps. Still, persons have been known to see 
at once too much and yet not at all. We have 
heard of and known persons who have looked at 
human history as did our friends who visited the 
Abbey. We have heard of and known persons 
who critically magnify each small patch of God’s 
plans, and so with a distorted vision, and unpro¬ 
portionate balance of perception, presume to 
pronounce judgment on the mind of the Infinite. 
We bring to the theme of man’s human and exter¬ 
nal existence, our measure of perception. Those 
who see most, we call seers, or prophets. The 
petty-minded ones of us set our critical wrath on a 
few chance points, and thus tangle up our souls in 
the intricacies of a doctrinal maze. 

We may not all be seers, but we must all be 
doers. We cannot all, or indeed any of us, appre¬ 
ciate God’s infinite plan for His universe; we 
cannot hope to, even though we may be trying 
earnestly to take the larger view. We cannot hope 


46 


Which Temple Ye Are 


to understand the soul-life of even our earth-born 
heroes, though we may try to enter into the spirit 
of their greatness. We can, all of us, do only the 
small duties that present themselves to us in our 
daily walk. These we must do well, and with our 
greatest skill, for we do not know how important 
a small act may become as a part of the whole. 
This most careful attention to the perfection of the 
work in our seemingly trivial offices, is our absolute 
and present duty. If, by His will, we are bid do 
more far-reaching labour, we must do that in the 
same simple, childlike spirit of endeavour to please 
the perfect Father. We must be “Faithful over 
a few things.” We must hope and wait for the 
further endowment of vision from the Spirit of 
Truth, our Teacher. The beauty of Art is de¬ 
pendent on its design and accurately wrought-out 
detail. In choral or orchestral music, how ob¬ 
viously dependent is the rendering of the whole 
on the precise execution of the parts! What care 
on the part of the conductor is required to ensure 
the harmonious working of the whole! The 
solidity of the rock is dependent upon the solidity 
of its atom. The excellence of the diamond is 
dependent on the excellence of its atom. We value 
our coal highly. If it is thickly mixed with matter 
other than coal it is almost useless. Have not 
these minerals at some, perhaps remote, time been 
subjected to cataclysm of some sort? Have they 
not suffered from cleansing fires and awful pres- 


“ Shall He Do Also ” 


47 


sures, before reaching their present state of useful¬ 
ness or beauty? I feel certain that at some time 
our souls, each one, must needs pass through awful 
fires of cleansing, awful overwhelming pressure, at 
least some cataclysm, before we shall shine as the 
brightness of the firmament. We shall be wise 
then; alas, now we are not wise, only in so pitifully 
small a degree. As the rock is infinitely more 
beautiful in its more crystallized state as marble, 
and as coal is so much more beautiful in its more 
crystallized state as a diamond; so shall we be 
infinitely more lustrous souls after having passed 
through some fires and heavy pressure that shall 
befall us. Some time my soul and your soul shall 
pray, each alone, in the shadowings of Gethsemane. 
Afterwards we shall shine like the stars. But now 
we must be content if we be but dependable useful 
rock, and make of our lives as fitting a temple of 
the Holy Spirit as we are able to. We must see to 
it that if we be but common household coal we 
must bum brightly and keep the holy fires of 
spiritual life ever clearly flaming. It is for our 
Creator to decide when we shall become more like 
the pure and glistening marble or the peerless dia¬ 
mond. But let us at least be useful rock or coal, 
every atom good, “and it is not yet made manifest 
what we shall be. We know that if he shall be 
manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see 
him even as he is. And every one that hath this 
hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is 


4 8 


Which Temple Ye Are 


pure.” The main point is that we must become 
pure by some means. We know that “as the gold 
must be tried by fire, so the heart must be tried by 
pain.” All nature points to the crucible. So tak¬ 
ing all classes of teaching together we would infer 
that all our earth difficulties are but cleansing fires 
for the renewing of our souls to a higher estate. 
What “strange adventures” we shall meet in other 
spheres than this we know not; but in all sanity 
of spirit let us see to it that we are fitting these 
bodies, His temples, for higher class service, at 
least, in this life. Let us learn to look on difficul¬ 
ties as steps heavenwards; and ceasing to repine 
that we are not now perfect, let us go on from 
perfection to perfection. 

I am not impudently trying to find an excuse for 
a cruel Creator. I am but endeavouring to take 
away a sort of hidden bitterness towards our dear 
Father, which I have at times stumbled against 
in the hearts of my fellow human beings, in the 
presence of suffering, want, and despair. My own 
heart has not always been free from this short¬ 
sighted folly. One may learn to respect the Divine 
Will rather than his own if he form a habit of look¬ 
ing back at times over his own life. In so doing 
how often we should cry, “I am so glad that God 
withheld the thing that I so strongly desired. 
What a disaster it would have been to me!” Or, 
at another time He may have seen fit to crush us 
almost—but not quite—to death. We have per- 


“Shall He Do Also” 


49 


haps stood still, prayerless, half-paralyzed until 
the weight of the storm lifted. Perhaps, in the 
afterward that followed, lay for us a joy which we 
would have endured much more to be possessed of, 
had we been able to foresee it. I believe with all 
my heart and soul and strength, that “To them 
that love God all things work together for good.” 
I can see the shadow of only one real disaster to 
my soul, that is that some time the tempter may 
subtly continue to intrude so many gaudy objects 
between my soul and my vision of God, that I 
may forget Him and cease to love Him. 

“Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 

Lest we forget, lest we forget. ” 


This is the one calamity which can overtake me, 
come else what will. 

If we are to be joint heirs with Christ, we must 
share with Him Gethsemane and the Cross. This 
is natural Law. We may with reason conclude 
that the beautiful flower is under the most trying of 
circumstances for its small self, just before it bursts 
its silken bands, and comes forth a perfect bloom. 
No one of us suffers all things . We must each of us 
sooner or later take our share, if we are to become 
perfected by the things which we suffer. After¬ 
wards we shall be glad. And so we would take it 
to be our duty—and privilege—cheerfully and 
hopefully—to endure our trials, knowing that they 


4 


50 


Which Temple Ye Are 


last but for a short while, and are but ascending 
steps. We should learn in any difficulty or pain, 
physical, mental, or spiritual, of our own, to feel 
for the infirmities of our fellows. 11 A fellow feeling 
makes us wondrous kind” has been aptly said. 
Wondrous kind! If we were each wondrous kind 
to each other, how near would be the Kingdom of 
Heaven! No fear then that we should ask in vain 
for the assistance of the Spirit. With this won¬ 
drous kindness would follow wondrous works. 

Our ability for redemptive work would be limited 
only by our measure of belief, or unbelief. “ I say 
unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that 
I do shall he do also; and greater works than these 
shall he do; because I go unto the Father. And 
whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, 
that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ” We 
think ourselves Christians, we think we are capable 
of good works, we think we believe. Is there much 
evidence to substantiate these claims? We may 
judge of our faith by its limits of capacity for 
redemptive good works. This only is the Master’s 
trial-ground for the good seed. If ye believe ye can 
do also. If ye cannot do, ye do not believe, is the 
corresponding conclusion. I can find no other 
testing distinction between Christians and non- 
Christians, excepting this obedient capacity to do 
the redemptive work of Christ on earth under His 
guidance. 

And we were to remain in the visible Church of 


“Shall He Do Also” 


5i 


God until we have received powers. We find that 
the Church is to be cleansed, not destroyed. Peter 
and John called upon the Church of their day to 
repent and learn of the Christ Whom they had 
crucified, so that there might be times of refreshing. 
What a wonderful record is contained in the 
account of the Acts of the Apostles. These 
Apostles and disciples had believed and had 
attained. Do we thus believe, and shall we thus 
attain? Shall we? Verily many of us do see 
visions, and dream dreams; but can we do greater 
works than these which our Lord did during His 
short earth-life? Still, Himself said that we should 
do greater—if we believe. Have we yet done 
greater? There seems to be left in bold relief, 
a doubt about the sincerity of our profession of 
faith. Still, we must each examine his own heart; 
we cannot judge each other. More than probably 
we believe in small part and do small works. We 
had better pray with the father of the demon- 
stricken child, “ I believe, help thou mine unbelief. ” 
Then perhaps we may—nay, we shall—attain to 
greater works in the redemptive scheme of our 
Lord Christ amongst the children of the race. 
The preparatory work there is to do for His reign, 
seems unmeasured in its vastness, and in its 
minutia; so unmeasured must be our endowments, 
if we are to fill the true position of those who be¬ 
lieve. If we truly believe, we shall love to walk by 
His side, until we become endowed with the power 


52 


Which Temple Ye Are 


to do the works that it is His will we should do, be 
they great or small. 

“All works are good, and each is best 
As most it pleases Thee; 

Each worker pleases when the rest 
He serves in charity; 

“And neither man nor work unblest 
Wilt thou permit to be. 

Lord, I would serve and be a son; 

Dismiss me not, I pray.” 


T. T. Lynch. 


CHAPTER IV 


“by this shall all men know” 

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
have love one to another.” John xiii. 35. 

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding 
your own selves. . . . But he that looketh into the perfect 
law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being not a hearer that 
forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed 
in his doing.” James i. 22-25. 



I UR text as quoted from our Lord must stand 


as leading tenet of our now too complicated 
Christian belief. The sturdy-souled James fol¬ 
lowed close in the wake of the Master, in his 
teaching. If Paul taught most strongly justifica¬ 
tion by faith, he also taught that the hearing must 
be accompanied by doing, thus, “For not the 
hearers of the law are just before God, but the 
doers of the law shall be justified. ” Paul tells us 
of his striving after the continued life. He says, 
“I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, 
as not beating the air; but I buffet (or bruise) my 
body, and bring it into bondage; lest by any means 
after that I have preached to others, I myself 
should be rejected. ” I fail to find that even Paul, 
who was certainly the apostle of justification by 


53 


54 


Which Temple Ye Are 


faith , hopes for this salvation without the Christ- 
like life and work as complement. He taught the 
doctrine of Christian liberty, but never did he 
teach licence to sin, or to be unclean, or unkind. 
Paul taught that to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ 
would bring us eternal life. But, we must also 
draw from his direct teaching that he feared that 
himself might be rejected as being unfit, unless he 
should succeed in subduing the selfish, carnal 
instinct that so constantly warred with his spiritual 
hopes. I can find no Messianic utterance, or 
Apostolic exhortation that gives us, as Christians 
(by faith), licence to countenance in our hearts 
and lives, injustice and cruelty one towards 
another. And yet these human attributes do 
certainly dominate over the holier ones of neigh¬ 
bourly justice and brotherly kindness. Who can 
deny it? That some of us are endeavouring to 
leave our Cain-like instinct behind, and are de¬ 
veloping more of the sweet brotherly instinct of 
Jesus Christ, is certain. Herein lies our work for 
the souls of the race. The efficacy of our service 
will in time rescind the penalty resulting from our 
fall. We shall not be a fallen race, but a risen 
one; risen from Adam to Christ. I do not mean 
to claim that social reform, of however laudable 
a character, should supplant that which we call 
religion, far from it. But I do urge that that which 
we term religion should take as its only active 
function , social reform in its many and exceedingly 


“ By This Shall All Men Know ” 55 


varied phases. We all agree, I think, that social 
reform covers the ground of the attaining to human 
perfection, not only of those of the Faith, to whom 
I am now appealing, but also of all individuals of 
our empire. Not only of our vast empire, but 
of all the world. Jesus Himself said, “Go ye 
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, 
baptizing them into the name of the Father, and 
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them 
to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: 
and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end 
of the world.” Therefore the missionary work 
is the highest phase of social reform service, if it 
be pure Gospel teaching that is thus carried into 
benighted lands, or into the downtrodden sections 
of our own people. All teaching for the Kingdom 
must keep close to the Master’s few essentials in 
doctrine; and all conduct must keep close to His 
example and command of brotherliness. To allow 
non-essential doctrinal points any prominence in 
missionary or social work, is already recognized to 
be injurious folly. To reach the status of the 
ethics of Christ’s kingdom, as recorded, is out of 
the question as an immediate result, but it is the 
ultimate ideal to which we must, and shall, attain. 
To this attaining we must set ourselves, if we 
wish to be known as disciples of the Lord Christ. 
In all things we shall seek for righteousness to 
cover, first, our own individual lives, next our 
national life, and lastly, the whole earth. “For 


56 


Which Temple Ye Are 


it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, to me every 
knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to 
God. So then each one of us shall give account 
of himself to God.” “For none of us liveth to 
himself, and none dieth to himself. For whether 
we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, 
we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, 
or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ 
died and lived again, that He might be Lord of both 
the dead and the living. ” It is difficult for a well- 
balanced mind to conceive of any one being a 
disciple of Christ, a Christian, if he be not found 
working in the service of Christ, in bringing about 
the redemption, temporal and spiritual, of his 
brother. “Even so faith, if it have not works, is 
dead in itself.... Thou believest that God is 
one; thou doest well; the demons also believe, and 
shudder. ” We must each be a missionary to the 
race. Our field is that vast world area which lies 
between the abodes of the homeless, and glorified 
man in the realization of a magnified Garden of 
Eden: between the despairing agony of lost souls, 
and the holy joy in the hearts of the sons of God, 
the joint heirs with Christ. 

If we set ourselves seriously to think upon 
matters eternal, as many of us do, we shall find 
that we must hark back no short way before we 
may find a starting place. We must shake our¬ 
selves free from much that is habit-formed, and 
has little meaning to us now, a sort of mental 


“ By This Shall All Men Know ” 57 


incrustation, which holds us habit-bound. From 
this we must escape, if we wish to take part in 
matters eternal. There are some things which do 
appeal to our conception as verities. This is all 
on which we have to build. We can conceive a 
little of our own planet, our own racial manner of 
living, our own racial varied ideas and beliefs 
concerning the Creator. The views of each people 
are a little different, even each personal view is 
different. We conceive the bright points of light 
in the heavens to be stars, and presume them to be 
relative to our own planet, and judge that they 
may be peopled with personalities somewhat like 
ourselves. But we do not know. All seems to be 
moving in rhythmic order. Our conception of 
this magnificent panorama depends on the capacity 
of our imagination, amplified by available know¬ 
ledge. The human perception is thus limited by 
its available knowledge, and by its capacity for 
making analogous deductions by the aid of the 
trained imagination. He who uses these gifts 
with the best results is he whom we term as being 
wise. I think this is mainly true, after making 
allowance for minor qualifications and limitations. 
Much is utterly unknowable to the wisest of us— 
at least in our present state of being. Many 
things we have a perception of, which is approx¬ 
imately knowledge. We find the wisest of men 
speak with the greatest of caution. They fre¬ 
quently say, “It would seem from certain data 


58 


Which Temple Ye Are 


likely to be so-and-so. ” They find forces working 
in some particular manner in this place, and pre¬ 
sume that given the same conditions elsewhere the 
results would be the same. But, by experience, 
they also know that there are other minor, or 
perhaps unrecognisable, laws which may cause 
deviation. Greatness of capacity in drawing ac¬ 
curate conclusions is limited by at least three lines 
of thought. First by the measure of ability to see 
into the infinite minutiae of nature; second, by the 
measure of ability to perceive the immensities of 
the universe; and thirdly, by the measure of 
ability in placing the common objects and events 
of life, as we know it, in their true relation to the 
whole, and in their true proportional position and 
valuation. There is, I take it, no more important 
exercise of the human intellect than this last. The 
lack of this last-named faculty accounts for much 
of our fault-finding with the schemes of God. 
We, not possessing a large degree of this balancing 
faculty, perceive affairs as incongruous, chaotic, 
and quite irreconcilable with the wisdom of God. 
We must pray earnestly for wider vision. We 
must bring to bear on this issue all the imagination 
of the seer, the powers of analysis and synthesis of 
the philosopher, praying earnestly for the aid of 
the Spirit of Truth. Our soul’s peace depends on 
our vision of God in his dealings with men. We 
can endure better when we trust fully. “ Behold, 
we call them blessed that endured: ye have heard 


“ By This Shall All Men Know ” 59 


of the endurance (or patience) of Job, and have 
seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is 
full of pity, and merciful.” There is reason in 
courage. There is shortsighted foolishness in cow¬ 
ardly shirking of duty. Our duty to our Father 
is worked out by us through service for one another 
and under the command of the Risen Christ, and 
by the assistance of the Holy Spirit. 

We may have dreamed, many of us, in our most 
imaginative moods, of other worlds than ours, and 
peopled like ours; worlds in which the All Thought 
has designed other plans than those which obtain 
in our race for the continued life of men’s souls. 
I rather think that perhaps ours is unique, as we 
are told that the plans by which we were to be 
brought into the renewed life were things that the 
angels desired to look into. We think that perhaps 
our racial history is a sadder one than usual, but 
if this is so, we shall without doubt have joy to 
compensate, if we endure. 

“Chance and change are busy ever; 

Man decays and ages move; 

But His mercy waneth never; 

God is wisdom, God is love. 

“E’en the hour that darkest seemeth 
Will His changeless goodness prove; 

From the gloom His brightness streameth; 

God is wisdom, God is love.” 

J. Bowring. 

Wisdom and love may bring us inconceivable joy 
in a little later day. We must never allow this 


6o 


Which Temple Ye Are 


earth-life period to be magnified out of all propor¬ 
tion to eternity. I think that this weakness is also 
the secret of our failure in discipleship. Also we 
underestimate our small present duties to the 
degradation of the future of our race. 

We find ourselves each to be one of this race of 
creatures called Man. I do not see that it is of 
first importance to know whether or not our far- 
back forebears were climbing and leaping through 
branches of forest trees, up out of danger from 
huger non-climbing animals; or whether my oft- 
times dream of falling through space comes from 
an active hereditary thought-cell (a sort of atav¬ 
ism), which has been transmitted and many times 
retransmitted down from my far-back heavily 
laden foremother, who may have fallen through 
the higher branches to the lower in some sudden 
terror. This would not affect our position at the 
present moment, would it? If at some given 
time in our history we became conscious that there 
was an Influence outside of ourselves, with which 
we came constantly in contact, but which was 
never visible to us; some Power which seemed to 
control our actions, and to which we instinctively 
turned for succour; would not this be our soul’s 
first dawning of knowledge of God as Over-soul? 
If in course of time we came to feel that when other 
beings, who were the same as ourselves, did rough 
and cruel things to us, we felt pain; and, if in 
time we saw that when we did rough and cruel 


“By This Shall All Men Know” 61 


things to these others, like ourselves, that they 
too seemed to suffer pain: if then we began to fear 
that invisible Influence, and felt like hiding our 
faces from Him, would not that be the beginning 
of the knowing of Good from Evil? Was it not 
the dawning of Conscience? If in time we came 
to find that there was also an invisible power and 
influence, outside of ourselves, which seemed ever 
urging us on to be rough and cruel to other beings, 
in order that we might enjoy a greater share of 
some food or comfort ourselves; and that we could 
do it with more or less safety from retributive 
punishment from the benign Influence; was not 
this our first consciousness of Self-will? When we 
began to listen to the selfish influence, and try to 
deafen our instinct to the kindly pitiful Influence, 
was not this the time of our “Fair’? If these 
events have come about in this most natural way, 
the wonder of our being loses nothing of its mar¬ 
vellousness or dignity. Whether we came by this 
circuitous route, or by instantaneous and miracu¬ 
lous creation, it matters little. I believe scientists 
admit that the Scriptural story could be so con¬ 
strued by being amplified. If we cannot yet 
understand the account of the creation of woman, 
as it is given in the poetic story of Eden, so are 
there many other things that we do not under¬ 
stand or comprehend in animal creation and repro¬ 
duction. Perhaps we have been told only part of 
this Creation story. But, what is really of vital 


62 


Which Temple Ye Are 


concern to us, is that we find ourselves here, men 
and women; and according to the known history 
of our race, our instincts have made little progress 
since our primeval days. Have we gained much 
in unselfishness? We still deliberately give cruel 
pain to one another, hoping that we may escape 
retributive punishment for our ill conduct. Look 
around amongst the human race and consider to 
what an almost universal extent this is still con¬ 
tinuing. I think some naturalists claim, that 
so-called ferocious beasts of the jungle are com¬ 
paratively harmless when well fed and comfortable. 
Are we so? Is this yet the status of modem man? 
Domestic swine have this selfish instinct large, I 
think quite as over-developed as we have it. I 
have in early life observed that the largest one of 
a young family of swine used always to eat all that 
it could and would then climb into the feeding 
trough and stand, in order to prevent the others 
from feeding. The others usually got enough 
in spite of the greedy fat one, excepting, to my 
childish sorrow, one little one, which never could 
get enough food. He was always a lovable little 
fellow too, and thrived finely when taken away 
from the others. I have beaten that largest swine 
in childish rage, but he only grunted disapproval 
at my impotent strokes—and remained standing 
in the trough. I fear that we have travelled far 
away from reasonable wild life, and have adopted 
too much of the propensities of the domestic 


14 By This Shall All Men Know ” 63 


animals which have caused me so much childish 
rage. Some one may remark that “Comparisons 
are odious.” Well, I think perhaps they are. 
There is also another searching little proverb which 
says, “ If one tosseth salt on thee thou wilt receive 
no hurt—unless thou hast sores.” I experience 
a smarting sensation myself whilst I make the 
above comparison, so I confess that I shall be 
obliged to buffet myself, or expect to be buffeted, 
for I have a few small possessions that I could 
give to a needy brother, but fail to do so ofttimes. 
And so we ask, have we gained by our long racial 
experience, or have we only become more knowing, 
and may we say, crafty? 

Do not many of us feel that we, as a whole, are 
on the wrong line of ambition, are pursuing phan¬ 
toms, are setting up false standards and ideals, are 
laying up treasures in the wrong store-house? 
And so we repeat that as the Founder of our Faith 
gave us as the only test of fitness for eternal life 
that we dealt with true brotherly kindness one 
towards another, and declared that our treatment 
of our fellows was really a treatment of Himself, 
I do not see how it can savour of secularism to urge 
that we are not, as a majority, a Christian people; 
while we have hunger and misery in our midst, 
when there is great plenty for all, if it were a little 
more evenly distributed. Alas for our selfish 
propensity of standing in the feeding trough! 
Alas, that some of us never in our lives had enough 


6 4 


Which Temple Ye Are 


to eat, and that some of us have no shelter from 
the ever-falling chilling rains! Alas, that some of 
us have so much wealth that it has palsied our 
brotherly instinct, the instinct by which our souls 
shall live, or for the lack of which they shall die! 
Alas, that those whose state lies between the 
always hungry and the always overfed should be 
so indifferent to the inequalities which exist in our 
social conditions. How joyfully we observe many 
radically helpful movements in process! If only 
the electorate of this empire could be brought to 
realize that there can he no party politics in a 
patriot's soul , what a blessing it would be! A 
patriot’s party will invariably be the party that is 
endeavouring earnestly to help to redeem the 
people from all misery and sinning. To the 
true patriot there will always be two lines of 
political trend. The one redemptive, therefore 
Christlike; and the other destructive, therefore 
satanic. There can be no middle course. There 
can be no irresponsibility in an electorate. On the 
electorate (under Christ) rest the vital issues of 
this crucial day. Never, perhaps, has the farewell 
address of Joshua been more acutely suitable than 
it is to-day, in this our nominally Christian State. 

“And if it seems evil unto you to serve Jehovah, 
choose you this day whom ye will serve. And the peo¬ 
ple said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve Jehovah. 
And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses 
against yourselves that ye have chosen you Jehovah, 


“By This Shall All Men Know” 65 


to serve Him, and they said, We are witnesses. Now 
therefore put away, said he, the foreign gods which 
are among you, and incline your hearts unto Jehovah, 
the God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, 
Jehovah our God we will serve, and unto His voice 
will we hearken.” 

Joshua went to his rest, and in time came the 
Great One, who should lead Israel into her Spiritual 
Canaan. Perhaps He had a better message for 
them. No, it was the same ancient message, 
“No man can serve two masters; for either he will 
hate the one, and love the other or else he will 
hold to one, and despise the other; Ye cannot 
serve God and mammon.” Christ’s teaching 
astonished this people of divided hearts, and dis¬ 
turbed them not a little. A few years later He 
spoke from out His invisible (to us) throne thus, 
“Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with 
me, to render to each man according as his work 
is.” Then follows an account of the blessing 
bestowed on those who are clean-souled, who have 
clean robes. We find that these only have a right 
to the tree of life, and the City of God. The list 
of those who shall be excluded, if it is carefully 
analysed, will be found to undermine many systems 
which are now, in our partial blindness, held almost 
sacred. “By this shall all men know that ye are 
my disciples, that ye love one another.” This 
is the testing text for a human soul, the test by 
which he lives or dies. By it shall we testify to 


s 


66 


Which Temple Ye Are 


ourselves and a watching world, whether we be 
genuine or only of a spurious sort. If we quietly 
meditate on the above named list of excluding sins, 
in their minutest and usually tortuous, half-hidden 
working, we shall be sure to find ourselves guilty 
of much that is accounted as criminal, and worthy 
only of death, in the Holy City. We shall be in 
grave doubt regarding our discipleship. We are 
choosing this day whom we will serve. Our views 
may differ, but our aims must be the uplifting 
of the race, and it is by this test that men shall 
know whether we bear the “Hall Mark” of Christ, 
or not. Spiritual economy and Political Economy 
are inseparably wedded, as typified by our existing 
Church and State. If you will find me a State 
in which its people serve as a Church of consecrated 
holy men and women, whose greatest honour is to 
do greatest service to all, men and women who 
really believe in our Lord, and are in agony of 
earnestness to bring about His complete reign, 
cost what it may of temporary loss; if you show 
me this Church, in that State also will I show you 
a Political Economy that is nearing, and arriving 
ever nearer, the status of the teaching and com¬ 
mands of the Saviour of the people from their sins. 
The two cannot for long live apart. 

By this shall all men know. Heretofore we have 
been universally described as Roman Catholic, 
Greek, Protestant. Amongst ourselves we are 
spoken of as Roman Catholic, English Church (or 


“ By This Shall All Men Know ” 67 


Anglican), Nonconformists, etc. Then there is 
the High, Low, and Broad Church. There are 
Congregational, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, 
and all the minor subdivisions. We need have 
no quarrel with the minor dividing doctrines, so 
long as they are not considered as essentials. That 
is where the trouble lies. Our faith must be as the 
faith of a little child, or we cannot enter the holy 
place. Babes cannot take strong meat, and we are 
indeed weaker than babes, in our spiritual experi¬ 
ence. If this were not true, our fruits would be 
better and more plentiful. God has veiled many 
of these subordinate doctrines, so thickly that we 
may be sure they are not to be accounted as 
essentials. Christ gave us the real essentials in no 
uncertain voice. This is our first necessary food. 
This is our initial and essential principle of life. 
If we put ourselves in training with the words of 
Christ only, until His idea of what we should be 
becomes dominant in our subconscious spirit, and 
therefore in our conduct, we shall emerge, many 
of us, I hope, as real disciples, many of us, I fear, 
as new converts. We shall not be described as 
Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, 
or Methodist, or by any other sectarian name, but 
we shall be said to be Christians indeed, in whom 
there is no guile. If we study the commands and 
advice, nay the beseechings, of our only Saviour, 
in connexion with the prophetic teaching which 
foretold His coming and His mission, I think that 


68 


Which Temple Ye Are 


we shall not come out of this study as one of that 
class of thinkers which are loosely termed Unitari¬ 
ans ; a class which seems to be anything between al¬ 
most Christian and almost Infidel. We shall know 
that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is now, an ac¬ 
tive, loving Saviour of men’s souls from disease and 
death. His is the only way, first, by example 
and teaching, ultimately by personal, continuous, 
and absolute command over us; and also over the 
intelligences which minister to our needs, if we be 
members of His body. This must continue until 
we all become Sons of God. All great religions 
ultimately reach the conclusion that the way to 
eternal happiness is by the subjection of the selfish 
fleshly instinct. But few have assayed to reach 
the perfect height in these cults, only the few 
“ Holy Men. ” It was left to the Redeemer of our 
race to be the climax of the whole religious trend. 
All that is good in all cults is in His authoritative 
teaching. It is natural that in time His regime 
should supersede all inferior and insufficient ones. 
If we each try to encourage the healthful and sane 
instincts that we shall find latent, or at least partly 
latent, within our souls, we shall find that all the 
teachings of Jesus appeal to our finest ideals, and 
noblest instincts. This in itself is proof enough 
that His way is the natural avenue by which we 
shall journey to Celestial Perfection. It is in 
keeping with the Infinite Perfection, that we be 
faithful over a few things, so that we may be 


“ By This Shall All Men Know ” 69 


made ruler over many things. When we consider 
our Creator’s infinite care over the almost incon¬ 
ceivable intricacy and accuracy of our unit of 
physical organism, the cell, we can the more readily 
perceive reason in Jesus’ teaching that we be 
faithful over a few things. It is even God’s Law 
of Life. We feel that we may say that we know 
this, when we observe, ever so dimly, His marvel¬ 
lous works of all sorts in nature. The followers of 
Jesus Christ were wrangling over the question of 
supremacy in the Kingdom of God, and appealed 
for final decision to the Master. He told them, 
“Except ye turn, and become as little children, 
ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of 
Heaven. ’ ’ Spiritual supremacy results from excel¬ 
lent workmanship, and not from arrogant over¬ 
bearing idleness. Little children are pleased to 
learn and do little things. Healthy-minded little 
children are proud to assist their parents or elders. 
They do not ask to do great things. The abnormal 
and selfish nature demands supremacy. It often 
succeeds in its demands, in human affairs; but it 
can in no wise succeed in spiritual matters. The 
Apostles were pinned down to this law of service, 
just as much as we are, just as much as the whole 
world is; just as Jesus the Christ was and is. His 
supremacy came to Him by right of His attaining 
it, not by ambitious overwhelming influence. It 
came by a humble, simple, godly life; by the things 
which He suffered; by the great and awful giving 


70 


Which Temple Ye Are 


up of Himself for us in order that He might bring 
us all to that life to which He had so quickly 
attained. That it was awful to Him in some way 
which perhaps we cannot yet conceive of, is evi¬ 
dent by Gethsemane, by His prayer, and by His 
cry on the Cross. By His physical agony, by His 
appealing prayer, by His last cry, I believe that in 
some more than regal way His life was given an 
offering for me. My brave Redeemer could not 
shrink from death, though it were the cruel nails of 
the Cross. He did not fear to lead where He knew 
many of His faithful disciples must follow. No! 
it was not that. May we not be sure that the 
shadow of some infinitely greater, perhaps more 
cruel, cross, lay upon His prophetic soul, and thus 
so greatly appalled Him? May we not feel sure 
that it must have added to His agony, did He 
foresee in panorama, the historic Church, that was 
to succeed His handful of followers, in all its 
recorded and unrecorded cruelties amongst the 
children of men? Would not the desire to heal, 
together with the knowledge that He must not do 
so, break His tender, loving heart? Would not 
this alone wrench His very soul? Whatever it 
was that did disturb and appal Him so keenly, 
we know not, but we do know that finally He 
obediently gave up for our sakes. This I feel that 
I do know. This I do accept. I am sure that in 
some Kingly, Godlike way, He gave His life to 
justify many. We know that it is said: 


“By This Shall All Men Know” 71 


“ Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put 
him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an 
offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall pro¬ 
long his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall 
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail 
of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge 
of himself shall my righteous servant justify many; 
and he shall bear their iniquities.” 

He gave up utterly and for ever all selfish in¬ 
stinct—if any tempted Him—and offered His 
complete service to the Father. This service was 
to be the caring for the children of the race, and 
finally the accomplishing of their physical and 
spiritual redemption. 

If we be His true disciples, this also will be our 
work. Prophecy is nearly in the last stages of its 
fulfilment. Thus we know that Christ’s complete 
reign must soon be an accomplished fact. Already 
we see preparations taking place all around us in all 
sorts of ways and workings. Happy is the man or 
woman that is found in the service of the living, 
reigning, Christ, Who is to save the people—not 
from eternal torture, but from their loathsome 
sinning—as fit temples of the living God. A true 
and intelligent Christian of to-day will find on 
careful examination of the matter, that he must 
enter into the sacrificial spirit of the Saviour of 
the people. He must make himself acquainted 
with the real needs of the unfortunate children of 
the race. Where he cannot hasten the healing, he 


72 


Which Temple Ye Are 


must bow his will to the Higher Law. But work 
towards this end he must, or he is no Christian. 
If we can remove pain, want, sin, or ignorance, and 
we do not do so, we are to that degree the cause of 
it. If we do not save a life when we can, we slay 
that life. All ills allowed, are caused. This has 
always been natural law. This indifference to our 
remedial responsibility is Cain-like in its results. 
The blood of Abel is still crying from the ground. 
Cain, the slayer of his brother’s body, mind, and 
soul, is still retorting impudently to God and man, 
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” And the blood of 
the starving, degenerate, suffering millions through¬ 
out this vast empire is still crying from the ground. 
It is crying from the slums, hovels, and lairs of the 
homeless, from the physical, intellectual, and most 
of all, spiritual degeneracy of the entire race . 

Have any of us ever seen our Messiah as He is? 
John tells us 

“We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall 
be like him; for we shall see him even as he is. And 
every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth 
himself, even as he is pure. Every one that doeth sin 
doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And 
ye know that he was manifested to take away sins; 
and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him 
sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, 
neither knoweth him. My little children, let no man 
lead you astray; he that doeth righteousness is 
righteous even as he is righteous: he that doeth sin 


“By This Shall All Men Know” 73 


is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. 
To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he 
might destroy the works of the devil. And this is his 
commandment, that we should believe in the name of 
his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he 
gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his 
commandments abideth in him, and he in him. And 
hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit 
which he gave us.” 

We are loth to refrain from quoting much more 
of this sweetly pure epistle, but we do pray of 
every believer to read it so frequently and thought¬ 
fully that it may become an incorporated part 
of the subconscious, intellectual quality of his 
mind, which controls his conscience, therefore his 
conduct. It is by this obedient abiding in the very 
heart and life of our Redeemer, that will lead us to 
this gentle forgiving love one towards another. As 
our text admonishes, it is by this that all men shall 
know whether we belong to Christ or Satan. 
There can be no middle course. The test is simple 
enough for a child to understand. As we are 
appealing mainly to those who believe, we must 
urge that it be plainly understood that the “nomi¬ 
nal Christians ” of our race are they who are 
holding the battle-ground against the Redeemer of 
men. Well may an unbeliever say in derision, 
“See how these Christians love one another.” 
See the satanic bitterness which exists even yet 
internationally, notwithstanding much splendid 


74 


Which Temple Ye Are 


endeavour! See the unpatriotic and shameful 
bitterness of party feuds, in politics, and in re¬ 
ligious matters, and in various schools of thought! 
See the daily records of our private and home life, 
as chronicled in current newspapers! See the con¬ 
duct of friend with friend! It may well be said 
that we do not love better than others. This the 
sneering world can notice as well or better than we. 
So, I contend that “ Nominal Christianity ” is re¬ 
sponsible for the stand that we take against the 
Kingdom of Christ. The state of our helpless, 
often degenerate, nearly always patient, poor; 
this stricken, illiterate, Christ less, driftwood of our 
people, is a standing evidence against us. God is 
waiting; only a short time now, and redress will 
begin, aye, is already beginning. These shall not 
always cry in vain. Compensation and retributive 
law will begin its inexorable process. With joy 
we see the dawning of a new era, an era in which 
all souls shall be younger brothers of Christ, 
brothers to each other, on terms of an equality 
which has for its test or credentials the economics 
of the Kingdom. This is true citizenship, true 
nobility; and each of us may enter this heaven-bom 
family now. Nay, it is our most pressing duty— 
and privilege—that we do enter it at once, as there 
is much work to be done. I wish our honoured 
friend who wrote If Christ came to Chicago and 
Satan's Invisible World Displayed would write, as 
companions to these, If Christ came to London , 


“By This Shall All Men Know” 75 


and Satan's Invisible World displayed in our own 
Empire. Let some one unearth the workings of 
the Satanic kingdom in the most astonishing state 
of affairs in our marvellous world-metropolis, the 
City of London. The City of luxurious, indiffer¬ 
ent, arrogant, carousal; and of miseries too pitiful 
and intricate in their workings to be related, too 
heartrending for us to retain our self-respect or 
happiness if we fully realize them. Little wonder 
that the Son of Man sweat great drops of blood in 
His agony of soul, during His prophetic vision. 
What a shame we have been, and now are, to Him! 

It is a matter of deepest interest to each indi¬ 
vidual in our State, that the pain and crying of 
the weaker little ones be soothed; that the starv¬ 
ing be nourished properly, in order that they may 
be fit for honourable service to the Empire; that 
they, and we all, may have opportunity of mental 
and spiritual culture, that the idle rich become 
industrious and generous, and ashamed before 
God and man of their abnormally selfish instinct. 
Along these various avenues there is work for all, 
from highest to lowest, from holiest to the most 
selfish. We must all be doers and not hearers only. 
By working under the guidance of, and in unison 
with, Christ’s government, shall we live. All else 
is sinning. The soul that sinneth shall die. 
Christ gave instructions that were simple and easy 
to understand. He directed us to “Bear one 
another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law.’’ It is 


76 


Which Temple Ye Are 


satanic and issues from Satan to add to each other’s 
burdens. By this simple test are we examined by 
the world at large, by Christ, by the Spirit, by 
God Himself, and our own consciences. 

“ O Master, let me walk with Thee 
In lowly paths of service free; 

Tell me Thy secret; help me bear 
The strain of toil, the fret of care. 

“ Teach me Thy patience; still with Thee 
In closer, dearer company, 

In work that keeps faith sweet and strong, 

In trust that triumphs over wrong.” 


W. Gladden. 


CHAPTER V 


“AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?” 

“And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? 
and he said, I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” 

Genesis iv. 9. 

“I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that 
which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, 
and will strengthen that which was sick; but the fat and the strong 
will I destroy; I will feed them in justice.” Ezekiel xxxiv. 16. 

“Many shall purify themselves, and make themselves white, 
and be refined; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of 
the wicked shall understand; but they that are wise shall under¬ 
stand. ” Daniel xii. 10. 

“That through these ye may become partakers of the Divine 
Nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world 
by lust. Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part 
all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue 
knowledge; and in your'knowledge self-control; and in your 
self-control stedfastness (patience); and in your stedfastness 
godliness; and in your godliness brotherly kindness; and in your 
brotherly kindness love. For he that lacketh these things is 
blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing 
from his old sins. 2 Peter i. 4-7, 9. 

“Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and 
keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his 
shame.” Rev. xvi. 15. 

I FEAR that nearly all of us are shamefully lack¬ 
ing in the garments of the virtues, and of holy 
service in binding up the broken and strengthening 

77 


78 


Which Temple Ye Are 


the weak. Why is it that we are so deplorably 
short of the true human ideal which we find under¬ 
lying all Holy Scripture? Is it our deep-rooted 
and intentional wickedness? I altogether doubt 
it. Wicked we surely are, but not so diabolically 
wicked and cruel in intent as our methods of 
citizenship would indicate. Many of us would be 
delighted to be able to realize the condition de¬ 
scribed in the Sermon on the Mount. Then why 
do we not strive after it night and day in agony of 
tears and prayers? We really must be in a state 
of spiritual coma. And so we beseech those who 
have a hope in Christ to look most carefully into 
the conditions in which our fellow-beings and our¬ 
selves exist, in order that we may be more fully 
awake to our grave responsibility in helping to 
remove these cruel and insane systems by which 
we are handicapped, in this so great an event, the 
race for eternal life. Paul said, “I therefore so 
run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, as not beating 
the air.” It were well that we examined each 
his own ability for this running with certainty; 
this fighting with sure effect. Even the most 
earnest of our workers seem in a sort of spiritual 
half-torpor. Athletes do not doze when trying 
to win the prize. Should we when trying to win 
“The prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus”? It is not to be wondered that the seer 
Ezekiel saw a vision of dry bones. No wonder 
that he saw that they were very dry. His faith 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 79 


in God’s awakening and inspiring power was 
indeed strong when he called out to them: “0 ye 
dry bones, hear the word of Jehovah. Thus saith 
the Lord Jehovah unto these bones; Behold I 
will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall 
live.” And by this figure we may hope that though 
we be very dry and to all appearances dead, the 
breath of the Spirit of God shall bring us into 
renewed life, and that we shall yet stand on our 
feet each in his own place, each doing his own 
duty. Paul asked the Corinthians thus, “Know 
ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” The Master had 
taught Paul this doctrine of the indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit in those who should become Sons of 
God and heirs of the Kingdom with Jesus Christ. 
Either we are becoming Sons of God and have His 
Spirit within us, or we are not, and have not the 
Spirit of God within us. Have we evidence of the 
individual purity and power which accompanies 
this indwelling? We fear that at best it is only the 
faintest breath that thus inhabits us, as our fruits 
are so few and of such poor quality. By our fruits 
are we tested. We may with reason suspect that 
we are in a state of spiritual half-torpor from which 
we are, seemingly, unable to awaken ourselves, 
rather than that we deliberately choose to be cruel, 
selfish, and indifferent towards our brothers. 

Sometimes at the beginning of the day we rise 
up from our beds with sluggish reluctance. We 


8o 


Which Temple Ye Are 


cannot fully awaken ourselves. We remember 
with dismay that many duties await us. How do 
we proceed to recover our wonted activity? Do 
we sit or lie down until we recover our wonted 
energy? I think not. Do we not force ourselves 
to go through the usual routine of cleansing and 
dressing ourselves? and after partaking of strength¬ 
ening and renewing food, we often find ourselves 
quite fit and ready for the day’s duties. Is it not 
much the same in our spiritual life? We must see, 
if we be not too fast asleep, that the dawn of morn¬ 
ing is here. We must, if our spiritual eyes are 
open, see so very many duties awaiting our faithful 
performance. We are dismayed at our seeming 
inability to exert ourselves, or properly to awaken 
our spiritual energies. Our half aroused intellects 
realize in some dim measure, that love to God, and 
service to man, are well nigh identical; but how 
we are to drag our sluggish spirits into these active 
soul heights is too much for us, in our seeming 
weakness. 

If we are really sincere in our desires, we shall be 
much troubled in spirit at our continuous failure, 
for we shall fully realize that a citizen of the Holy 
City cannot be an idle sluggard. He cannot even 
be an ordinary citizen. After all, is an utterly idle 
person a living human being, or is he only a tran¬ 
sient figure? He certainly is not an important 
entity in our midst, excepting as a parasitical en¬ 
cumbrance on our more industrious brethren, our 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 81 


true citizens. So I take it that a non-worker in the 
Church of Christ, in the Holy City, is not merely 
a nonentity, but an impossibility. 

What is true service? may well be asked. We 
must all see that the field is wide, wide enough for 
all men to find an opportunity to exercise and so 
develop their one or ten talents. But woe to the 
human soul that will not use his small talent, be¬ 
cause he was not given a great one. And woe to 
the human soul who has ten talents, and is too in¬ 
different, or lazy, to use the half of them for the 
betterment of his fellows. We may not with im¬ 
punity shirk our individual duty—or it should be 
privilege—though we may wish to. We should 
remind ourselves that the City of God is to be 
established in the earth conditions. Therefore, no 
one at this far advanced period of earth history 
dare attempt to dissociate social reforms and 
spiritual matters. If he does do so, it is at the risk 
of his eternal life. Our latent talents are assets 
for which we shall have to account to our Judge 
at the testing time. It would be better for our¬ 
selves and for the world at large did we realize this 
truth. 

Service must necessarily be very varied, and for 
this reason we may well suppose that our Creator 
gave us as a race all capabilities that are required; 
to every man according to his needs, to do the duty 
assigned to him. Nor does all work consist in 
feeding the hungry of body. There are many, alas, 
6 


82 


Which Temple Ye Are 


hungry of soul, to be fed also. Perhaps some 
disease-stricken, suffering one may have un¬ 
measured influence towards holiness amongst 
acquaintances, by cheerfulness, resignation, and 
hope in Christ, by the kindly spoken word of 
admonition to a wayward one, or the sympathetic 
word to another sufferer who may be in trouble or 
sorrow. Even the wealthy and socially important 
are sorely in need of friendly counsel, as theirs is 
the most hopeless social condition of all to-day 
amongst us. Hopeless, because they are blind to 
the enormity of their sinning, and indifferent to the 
disease with which they are as a class afflicted. 
God says, “The fat and strong will I destroy.” 
Surely these who are wealthy and of great social 
importance are the fat and strong. They are a 
doomed class so long as they remain as they now 
are as a class. Surely they do not “ understand, ” 
therefore they do not purify themselves, they 
refuse to be refined. Our text from Daniel tells us 
why. So we claim that there is a field for a far- 
reaching mission amongst the idle and indifferent 
wealthy families of our State. I hope yet to see 
many of these use their ten talents of, at least, 
wealth, in a kingly, Christ like manner. I feel sure 
that all will not remain in that unholy throng that 
shall flee before Nemesis. Some will doubtless 
“go away sorrowful, ” as did the young ruler of old, 
but surely so lovable ones as some of these are, 
shall come back and bring their offering and cast 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 83 


it at the feet of the Redeemer of men. And our 
rulers; what of them? Rulers we must needs have 
until His Kingdom is accomplished, but let there 
be a mission amongst the rulers, from greatest to 
most insignificant, that they may be holy and just, 
and conscious that they are acting only for the best 
interests of the coming of the Holy City. This 
spirit we rejoice to see is growing amongst this, 
so truly important, company of our people. There 
is little question whether there is needed a mission 
amongst the commercially important of our people. 
This work is twofold. One line lies along the way 
of systems of commerce being cleansed from all 
injustice and dishonesty in the transaction of 
business one with another, and honesty with the 
purchasing public. The other lies along the line 
of the Cain-like and satanic injustices and dis¬ 
honesties of the labour question, in connexion with 
the production and marketing of the products. 
The unearthing of these abuses, which we so often 
see attempted of late, is a sure indication that they 
too are now under judgment. May God in His 
mercy give these lovers of men who are making 
this attempt great skill, insight, wisdom, and 
courage, until all these atrocities are bared before 
an ashamed world. There are so many evils 
rampant among us, that we are forced to leave each 
story to be told by those who are so deeply inter¬ 
ested in the exposure and removal of these various 
scandalous abuses. We quote an alarming and 


84 Which Temple Ye Are 


comprehensive list of these from an account of a 
May meeting in London. It runs thus:— 

“Drink Traffic. 

Housing Problem. 

Land Question. 

Various Phases of Impurity. 

White Slave Traffic. 

Impure Literature. 

Betting and Gambling. 

Child Rescue and Training. 

Sweating. 

Pleasures and Recreations of the People. 

Abolition of War.” 

In concluding an address on the above list the 
President said, “ Surely the time has come for us to 
face the whole situation and study the whole pro¬ 
blem in the light of the Incarnation, the Cross, and 
the ascended Christ, with hearts burning with the 
enthusiasm of humanity kindled at the altar of 
Calvary.” This is how men feel when they get 
a glimpse of the state of affairs as they exist in our 
midst to-day, and are able also to keep the vision 
of the Redeemed World to be before their eyes. 
Ruskin in his anxiety for humanity tells us, ‘ ‘ But I 
simply cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, 
nor do anything else that I like because of the misery 
that I know of, and see signs of where I know it not. 
Which no imagination can interpret too bitterly.” 
He cried out in his pitiful misery, “The cruelest man 
living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blind¬ 
folded.” Alas, that so many of us are blindfolded 
by our selfish instincts! 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 85 


After we are able to see about us a little more 
clearly we shall find that we require a very thor¬ 
ough cleansing. After that we shall be clothed in 
garments of right thinking. We must then feed on 
the simple and invigorating Word of God’s instruc¬ 
tions. By the time all this is well accomplished, 
no doubt, we shall find ourselves quite fit and ready 
for any duty which the kind Father has given us 
the privilege to perform. It is of little use to set 
out for our day’s work without some preparation. 
If a man jumps from his bed still half asleep and 
sans bath, sans day-clothes, sans food, rushes out 
wildly to perform various tasks that are urging 
themselves on his sleep-muddled brain, he will 
also be, doubtless, sans success. He would be 
considered insane. If he try to do holy, wise 
service for his brother, in this erratic manner, he 
would be what we know as a fanatic. 

We are safe in assuming the position that all 
healthy persons desire some sort of occupation, 
some class of exercise on which they may exhaust 
their reinforced splendid energies. So, may we 
not claim that the spirit of a man who has stren¬ 
uously freed himself from selfish unclean thoughts 
and has robed himself in loving holy desires to¬ 
wards his brother, and has partaken of the Bread 
of Life, the food for strengthening the soul, and 
has thus prepared himself for his beloved sunshiny 
day with its interesting duties and privileges, can 
no more sit idly in lazy indifference than can a 


86 


Which Temple Ye Are 


happy, healthy, laughing child choose to sleep 
idly all through the summer’s day, instead of 
playing amongst the flowers in very gladness of 
being? Oh, the joy of living when in perfect health 
of body! Oh, the joy of living eternally when in 
health of soul! May God in His infinite mercy 
and pity grant to our now too inactive souls that 
vital health which shall bring us this unspeakable 
joy of living, this holy gladness, this peace which 
passeth all understanding. There will be no shame 
in this gladness, for it will by its very vital nature 
be shared by those by whom we are surrounded. 
It will be reflected and re-reflected until we in full¬ 
ness of joy sing, “Glory to God in the Highest” 
for this so magnificent a gift—a living soul within 
us. 

God’s Word tells us again and again of joy and 
gladness, and here we sit mournful, almost inactive 
with sobbing in the soul like the restless unsatisfied 
soughing of the troubled sea. The Father calls 
down to us from the days of the seers of old—and 
His words change not—“Awake, put on thy 
strength, put on thy beautiful garments. Shake 
thyself from the dust; arise, sit on thy throne.” 

When this preparation is accomplished and we 
feel the vigour of eternal youth thrilling through 
our beings, we shall have such a clear vision of 
transient matters, that, I think, at first we shall be 
frightened, and must shrink in horror at the night¬ 
mare with which we are enveloped. We had 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 87 


thought ourselves goodish sort of persons, quite 
comfortably full of pity for the erring and op¬ 
pressed. We had taken considerable pride in this 
patronising pity of ours. We had felt ourselves 
to be indeed magnanimous when we allowed 
Lazarus to share our crumbs with the dogs. We 
had prided ourselves on our honesty and good 
conduct. We magnified our well paid virtue, 
complimenting ourselves because we were not 
accused criminals. But now, when we shall have 
clearer vision of ourselves, we look to be so unclean, 
so naked, so weak and wavering. Our honesty 
and virtue appear so much the result of habit and 
environment, that we are chagrined at our low 
moral estate. We find that many of those whom 
we in our arrogance had despised as being evil, 
were quite equal, maybe superior, to ourselves, 
considering their opportunity for moral culture. 
We shall feel that we are in no way fit to lead these 
unfortunate children to the higher life, a life to 
which ourselves have not yet attained. What 
could our argument be? Shall we go to these 
brothers and piously say, Be ye clothed and fed, Be 
ye pure in all your ways and thoughts? Shall we 
look about us at cruel selfishness and thoughtless 
indifference amidst the few overfed, would-be 
rulers and oppressors of our people, and say to 
them, Be ye generous, unselfish, humble, when we 
share all these sinful characteristics in less degree— 
perhaps because our temptation is less? Many 


88 


Which Temple Ye Are 


of these have inherited these characteristics and 
temptations along with their possessions. Those 
who have amassed great riches, or have succeeded in 
securing any overmastering oppressive power over 
the people in general, have not necessarily done so 
because they are naturally possessed of unholy 
characteristics. It requires thrift, industry, care 
to make an honest living to-day. It is so easy 
for an over-thrifty man to be greedy. It is easy 
for any of us to be greedy—in a degree, our Master 
said that he who broke the least of the command¬ 
ments, broke all. This is a lesson for us when we 
are in a “I am holier than thou” mood. Not 
that the cruel sinning of the overfed should be 
considered less cruel, but that we should not at¬ 
tempt to palliate our crimes of sinful selfishness 
because they are smaller, when we have never had 
opportunity to make them large. We need once 
more to hear the scorching word, “ He that is with¬ 
out sin among you, let him first cast a stone at 
her. ” We are all so guilty of sinning that we may 
not with impunity cast stones. We are, each, 
great and small, rich and poor, guilty of all wrong 
and misery that we are competent to rectify, and 
do not. This is one of Christ’s main doctrines, one 
that He was constantly teaching in various forms. 

We feel that to see a great danger is to receive a 
call to warn others of it. Surely then we may 
either gently, or if needs be, urgently, endeavour to 
draw attention to these human defects which are 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 89 


common to all, in a spirit of motherly desire to care 
for the whole of the race, through the arousing of 
the spiritual and holier instincts of the individual. 
Though I were sunken to the lips in a quagmire of 
sinning, still, as a human being it were my duty to 
use those lips in cries of warning to others. To 
point to danger on one hand, and to the saving 
Christ on the other, is one’s clear duty, if he be a 
believer in our Faith, even if he be not of a perfect 
character. Who but Christ is such? But to be 
rational, we should be each striving to avoid the 
quagmire with all our might. 

We should ourselves be ever looking upon the 
Perfect Son of Man, and of God, until we gradu¬ 
ally become more nearly like Him. This con¬ 
stant looking on the Christ, we must cultivate, or 
we shall never really be lovers of our brothers. 
This is the only way that we can learn to com¬ 
pletely eradicate the taint of Cain from our blood. 
We are each of us our brother’s keeper, spiritually, 
mentally, and physically. We have by nature 
inherited this responsibility, and cannot avoid its 
discharge, either well or ill. Cain, the elder, slew 
his younger brother. Christ Jesus, our elder 
Brother, slew Himself, that we might live. We 
walk in the way of either Cain or Christ. We 
may not do this walking in Christ as a pastime in 
“slum work,” or “charity work” (odious terms), 
but as a self-disciplinary walking, that is absolutely 
necessary to our very existence. The pitiful 


90 


Which Temple Ye Are 


Father could easily care for these little weak ones 
without our puny efforts, but we cannot keep our 
life blood pure enough to enable us to live, without 
this disciplinary exercise. I do not thus appeal to 
the selfish instinct of man, but to his self-preserva¬ 
tive instinct only. Some time, somewhere, these 
little weak ones shall be grandly compensated. 
This I feel I know. Some time, somewhere, we 
shall die the second death, which is without hope 
of recovery, if we neglect this holy and life- 
giving exercise of soul, this bearing of one another’s 
burdens, that we may thus fulfil all law. Stagna¬ 
tion is death. Exercise, even of soul, must have an 
object. The exercise of the soul is love, of the 
sacrificial sort, and utterly careless of remuneration 
in any way. How shall we escape this second 
death (or the death of the soul) if we neglect the 
exercise of this so noble loving, and how shall we 
some day face the Redeemer and those weak ones 
whom it was our greatest privilege to defend and 
assist and comfort? And so we ought to prepare 
ourselves for this purifying service with the 
greatest of care. We should endeavour each to 
place himself, in the universal order, and inquire 
prayerfully of our Creator what He would have us 
to be and do. We should go into the most 
rigid training at once. Nothing temporary should 
be considered as weighing against eternal issues. 
“ Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not 
yet made manifest what we shall be. ” 


9i 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 

Eternity is so limitless! Surely it were wise to 
interest oneself in the eternal verities, rather than 
in magnifying out of all proportion mere earthly 
issues. Every-day duties are the steps on which 
we rise, step by step. Never shall we rise to 
perfection by neglecting our small duties while we 
dream of an impossible eternal home which shall 
be free from all responsibility. We can under¬ 
stand, and may have felt at times, too world weary 
to desire an active eternity, but would an idle 
eternity give us infinite happiness? Never. 

Some of us who believe in a future state, think 
of it too much from a material or physical stand¬ 
point, though I think this mistake is not common. 
In this case, perhaps, our mind dwells too much 
on the rarer qualities of the new body for which we 
hope. We think much of our freedom from weak¬ 
ness, disease, and all infirmity, to which we now 
yield far too easily. We dream of floating by 
volition from star to star in adventurous curiosity 
or laudable desire to know scientific truths. We 
want garments, and lo, we are clothed as we desire. 
We wish to see friends, and lo, we are by their side. 
This dreamland view is, I think, not so general 
as the opposite, or too vague one. In the latter 
case we think much that we have no more reason 
for thinking than we have in the more materialistic 
mood. Some of us who think we believe in the 
Saviour of men, dwell too much on our wonderful 
happiness to be, and of the perfection which we 


92 


Which Temple Ye Are 


hope to have miraculously thrust upon us, as we 
joyfully appear in the presence of the Lord, on our 
departure from this life. Forgiveness , on repent¬ 
ance , we have surely a certain hope of, both now 
and then; but where shall we find promise of this 
miraculous, instantaneous, change of character, 
in God’s Word other than at the moment of con¬ 
version to the Faith? Even then it is described 
as a thing of growth, after one has turned to do 
that which is just and right in Christ’s Kingdom, 
and through the avenue of serving one another. 

From perfection unto perfection is the teaching 
of Scripture. We are told that if we are Christ’s 
disciples, in very truth, we are in the presence of 
an illustrious company. Paul, who had been taken 
up into the heavens, either in the spirit, or actually, 
knew things which he doubtless saw, so spake with 
certainty thus: 

“ Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city 
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to in¬ 
numerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly 
and Church of the Firstborn who are enrolled in 
heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits 
of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator 
of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling 
that speaketh better than that of Abel.” 

I cannot conceive of or imagine an assembly like 
this luxuriating in a blissful, dreamy idleness. 
By the agony of Gethsemane, I am sure that our 


93 


“Am I My Brother s Keeper?” 

Redeemer is in a state of intense activity, and that 
His Church must also be. If I am fortunate 
enough to be ultimately in this so select a company, 
my soul assures me that I shall share His travail. 
Perhaps, to those who do not crave for celestial 
service, with the fitness will come the desire. If we 
are to share His gladness over a world redeemed 
from sin, we must also share His sacrificial service 
in this life, and from instinct and evidence, in 
the next also. “It doth not yet appear what we 
shall be. ” Jesus the Christ while on the Cross said 
to the repentant thief, “To-day shalt thou be with 
me in Paradise.” We learn that Christ went 
immediately to preach to the spirits in prison. 
Doubtless the repentant thief remained in the 
Master’s presence and received the same teaching 
that was then heard for the first time by these—or 
so we seem safe in presuming. That the “thief” 
did not ascend to heaven at once is certain, as 
Jesus the Christ certainly did not. John, who 
kept in spirit very close to the Crucified One, tells 
us that to Mary, on the morning that He rose, He 
said, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended 
unto the Father: but go unto my brethren, and 
say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your 
Father, and my God and your God.” After this 
He told the eleven disciples that all authority and 
power had been given unto Him in heaven and on 
earth. We must find that this “Paradise” was 
not heaven, because the disobedient spirits were 


94 


Which Temple Ye Are 


imprisoned there, and it is inconceivable that these 
should be thus confined in heaven. We must 
admit that it was some “Abode of the dead” to 
which they went that day, both Christ and the 
repentant thief, the one to preach, and the other 
to learn. All this gives us an idea of a world of 
great activity and attainment which may be very 
near and around us. Moses and Elias appeared 
and conversed with Jesus on the Mount of Trans¬ 
figuration. We must see it that they were actively 
alive. Christ Jesus said to His disciples whom He 
was leaving, “Let not your hearts be troubled: 
believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s 
house are many abiding places; if it were not so, 
I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place 
for you.” Many mansions, or abiding places, 
a state of suitability to environment. When one 
gathers up evidence, and perhaps by instinct 
imagines much more, of the possibilities of the next 
phase of life, and of its ever lifting and widening 
effect on the new bom child of God, our petty, and 
mean-spirited, and short-sighted standpoints stand 
out in such relief that we are filled with shame. 
We do not pretend or hope to understand much 
of the vision of John, but from it we must learn 
that a most crucial and refining time shall come 
alike to each soul, each system, and the whole 
earth race. The fires of the Perfect One shall 
purify and destroy. As I appeal only to believers, 
I know that we must all agree to this, and must 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 


95 


also impress on the unbelieving world the sincerity 
and surety of our convictions, and we shall thus 
grow from perfection to perfection, as a whole race 
of souls. 

By our love for, not only our fellow-believers, 
but for the oppressed and the arrogant, for the 
foolish and the wise, for the cruel and the merciful, 
for the evil and the good, persons by whom we are 
surrounded, shall we testify our sincerity. Our 
burden is great if we wish to be true followers 
of the Redeemer, as our labour is to help to save 
the people from their sinning—ourselves included. 
All this vast and illustrious army previously men¬ 
tioned, is watching how we fulfil our task, pitying 
our weakness, stimulating us to better effort if we 
are willing to receive it. How does it look to them 
when we hate our neighbour, when we injure our 
fellow-citizen, when we lie, steal, kill? How shall 
we face Holiness when we are so lacking in the very 
rudiments of holiness? How shall we face Christ 
Who made the uttermost giving up of Himself, 
when we are selfish enough to withhold that which 
we cannot possibly require, from our brother, who 
is suffering the cruellest deprivation? How shall 
we face this assembly that has valiantly conquered 
evil tendencies, and is now arrayed in white robes 
of holiness, when we debauch our every instinct 
with self-indulgence, arrogant tyranny, murderous 
withholding of our surplus from the dying; when 
we are indifferent to mental and physical degener- 


96 


Which Temple Ye Are 


acy, and are also indifferent to the spiritual starva¬ 
tion of our people, ourselves included? We are 
each of us our brother’s keeper, God is witness to it. 
How do we perform our duty; or better, our holy 
privilege? 

This is the most vital question that can come to 
us as individuals and as a nation, and so we urge 
ourselves to prepare for better service towards the 
helping in of the Kingdom of God in our State. 
Already we see two forces strenuously opposing one 
another. Some, perhaps not wholly conscious of 
their importance in the preparation for the King¬ 
dom of God, are filled with a determination to 
correct ills, in order that we may rise in quality 
as a nation of men. This lifting of the individual 
is the one work of the hour. All other service must 
accommodate itself to this. To this service every 
man, woman, and child must lend full aid. Those 
who oppose kindly measures in any form, are 
actually opposing the Kingdom of God, though 
we must hope that they are not always fully con¬ 
scious of the enormity of their short-sighted, mur¬ 
derous, and suicidal conduct. We see all sorts of 
systems passing under the scourge of cords. We 
see wrongs written up in full, to an alarmed and 
indignant populace. All this is the judgment of 
the world which is now taking place. It was due, 
it is here. God never fails in His word or works. 

Many of us, especially in our aspiring youthful 
days, greatly admire the historic heroes of our race. 


97 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 

Many of us may even have dreamed of emulating 
some of them. Later in life this, usually un¬ 
founded, hope naturally dies for want of suste¬ 
nance. The history of these heroes always tells us 
one tale, if we will but bear it, namely, that these 
giants each did the service that he alone could do. 

In the initial sense all real heroes are merely 
good citizens. Their greatness lies partly in cir¬ 
cumstance, and partly in their having attempted 
to do the service that they alone could do better 
than any one else. These were too conscious of 
their gift of doing to be hindered by self-conscious¬ 
ness or mock-humility. These felt that they must 
do this service for their brothers, that they could 
do it, and they were filled with an invincible 
determination that they would do it. This brought 
success to the extent that Providence permitted. 
But the real measure of their heroism was the 
measure of their willingness to do service in the 
cause of citizenship. A citizen is his brother’s 
keeper; that is percisely what citizenship means 
in its last analysis. If each of us were a hero in this 
manner, the result would be a race of giants in 
moral status, and in time, of mental and physical 
strength, and great degree of general perfection. 
In the giving of great gifts of money or lands, many 
of us are most narrowly limited in our usefulness, 
but a little child may be as real a hero as a mil¬ 
lionaire, and is much more likely to be one. Poor 
or suffering persons are proverbially more thought- 


98 


Which Temple Ye Are 


ful to others than those who have never wanted or 
suffered. The widow’s mite was the largest gift 
in the day’s giving, according to our Lord’s valua¬ 
tion—because she gave out of her need. The 
others had doled a little out of their plenty. I do 
not think we really give acceptably before God 
until we feel the weight of the loss of our gift. 
We cannot do acceptable service until we allow 
the burdens of our common brotherhood to rest 
so heavily upon us that it is all ourselves can bear 
to hold up under our share of it. This is more 
nearly sharing the Redeemer’s service for the 
human brotherhood. Our desire must be to lift 
and save our brother, and not to be known as great 
persons; that is a petty, selfish reason for noble 
endeavour, and must end in a ridiculous fighting 
of windmills, a rescuing of what does not require 
our aid. A real hero is so intent on his object that 
he forgets to pose, and is too conscious of his 
position to be mock-modest. Christ, the only 
One who has been perfect in both His humanity 
and in His asserted power, was not hindered by 
sneers, nor was He diverted from His mission by 
adulation. When the High Priest asked Him, 
Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 
Jesus said, “lam; And ye shall see the Son of Man 
sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with 
the clouds of heaven.” This caused the poor 
foolish High Priest to rend his clothes in vexation— 
but the Son of the Blessed went on His way to 


“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” 99 


finish the mission to which He was called. He 
is still faithful to this confessed call, and will be 
until all things are in submission to the Perfect 
Law. If we wish to work in Christ for the good 
of humanity, we must have this same stedfastness 
of purpose, ever lifting our eyes upward towards 
the end of the eternal pathway where dwelleth 
the Blessed One. We must all help, each in his 
small way, to bind up the broken and strengthen 
that which is sick. We must purify ourselves and 
partake of the Divine Nature. We must be dili¬ 
gent, wise, self-controlled, kind. We must have 
our eyes opened that we may see our nakedness, 
and we must pray for, strive after, the clean, 
unselfish garments of holiness, and so shall we be 
in a fit condition to help to redeem a dead race 
into a company of risen and renewed souls, like 
unto Christ Jesus, our Elder Brother, our Keeper. 
We must have the taint of Cain which is in our 
nature washed away in the life-giving blood of the 
Lamb. 

"He died that we might be forgiven, 

He died to make us good, 

That we might go at last to heaven, 

Saved by His precious blood. 

Oh, dearly, dearly has He loved, 

And we must love Him too, 

And trust in His redeeming blood, 

And try His works to do. ” 

C. F. Alexander. 


CHAPTER VI 


<< 


FATHER, I HAVE SINNED 


“But when he came to himself he said, I will arise and go to 
my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against 
heaven, and in thy sight: . . . But while he was yet afar off, 
his father saw him, and was moved with compassion.” 


Luke xv. parts of 17, 18, 20. 


‘ ‘The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now 
he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: 
inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the 
world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; 
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath 
raised him from the dead.” Acts xvii. 30, 31. 

“Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be 
blotted out, so that there may come seasons of refreshing from 
the presence of the Lord; and that he may send the Christ who 
hath been appointed for you, even Jesus; whom the heaven must 
receive until the times of restoration of all things.... And 
it shall be, that every soul that shall not hearken to that prophet, 
shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. ” 


Acts iii. 19, 20, 21, 23. 



HE above teaching seems to me to be very 


1 clear, lucid, and direct in its meaning. We 
are not aware that it has been successfully chal¬ 
lenged by any critic, be he of the “higher” or 
“lower” type. We are not aware that any 
sophistical controversialist has succeeded in eradi¬ 
cating all meaning out of it. We therefore feel 


100 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


IOI 


safe in presuming that its intended meaning is 
clearly expressed for our instruction and admoni¬ 
tion. So, as we are especially addressing those of 
the Faith, we are all of us obliged to accept this 
authoritative and judicial test as to our fitness for 
the continued life, or our condemnation to death. 
There is no evading it. Personally, we feel in¬ 
tensely humiliated through the little introspection 
which we have been able to exercise. Many to 
whom I appeal have had very great natural oppor¬ 
tunity for building a good moral character, and 
yet when under our partial awakening we see our¬ 
selves in a more nearly true light, our very souls 
must blush with shame for our petty shortcomings, 
for our small meannesses, our uncharity, our indif¬ 
ference to wretchedness, our unwillingness for 
self-sacrifice, and our exceeding many faults. 
We ought to understand that we must die if it 
thus continues, for we read, “The soul that 
sinneth, it shall die, ” and that if we do not hearken 
to Jesus Christ we shall be utterly destroyed 
from among the people. If we cannot bring our¬ 
selves to a state of repentance on the grounds 
of horror of sinning—and some of us cannot—let 
us begin by remembering that self-preservation 
demands that we repent in order that we may not 
die. After attending to the more careful culture 
of the soul for a while from this standpoint, our 
spiritual senses will become more refined and we 
shall then shrink in horror from the soul disgrace 


102 


Which Temple Ye Are 


of greedy and sensual thoughts and actions. In 
time we shall lose sight of even the self-preserving 
instinct, and shall see no law in God’s universal 
order excepting service towards the ever upward 
movement of all things, systems, and peoples, amidst 
which we are placed by our Creator and Preserver. 

We may well ask ourselves why this repentance 
is so essential a quality in us. Of course the 
answer is not difficult to find. But do we fully 
realize the importance of repentance even though 
we know that it is commanded again and again, 
not only to the unbelieving but also to the pro¬ 
fessed disciples of Christ? We might well illus¬ 
trate repentance as being the hinge of the door 
into the Way of Life. The door will only open 
by the use of the hinge. The Way of Life is the 
sinless life. If we are sinning, and are conscious 
of it, and are indifferent to the certain consequences 
of a continuation of it, how shall we enter the sin¬ 
less path to eternal life? The door is closed, we 
can only open it one way. Or, we may look upon 
repentance as a change of standpoint. Christ 
told a learned ruler of the Jews who came to 
inquire of Him of His doctrine, “Except one be 
bom anew (or from above), he cannot see the 
Kingdom of God.” How can one be satisfied 
with a new standpoint, until he be dissatisfied 
with the old one? He cannot for long have two 
standpoints, and remain well balanced either in 
intellect or soul. He will eventually settle down 


‘'Father, I Have Sinned” 


103 


to either God or Mammon. If God be God let 
us serve the race from His eternal standpoint. 
If Mammon be the true God, by all means let us 
serve him. From this crucial choosing we cannot 
for long escape. Repentance is the turning point 
on which we decide which it shall be. I address 
those who believe in the historic Christ and do not 
dispute the authority of His instructing commands. 
We may be one of this class and yet require 
repentance more than one who is an unbeliever or 
who is a pronounced criminal. Christ Jesus took 
the dying thief with Him from the Cross, that He 
might instruct him. He told His self-righteous 
wrangling disciples, “ Except ye turn, and become 
as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into 
the Kingdom of Heaven.” He forgave the adul¬ 
terous woman, commanding her that she sin no 
more. After casting out the seven demons from 
Mary Magdalene we find that He accepted her 
service in His holy work. She had repented and 
had been forgiven. 

Christ instructs us regarding forgiveness fol¬ 
lowing repentance amongst ourselves in our daily 
intercourse with one another thus, “If thy brother 
sin, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. 
And if he sin against thee seven times in the day, 
and seven times turn again to thee, saying, I 
repent; thou shalt forgive him.” If our friend 
does us an injury and is not sorry for it, he will 
doubtless do it again when opportunity occurs. 


104 


Which Temple Ye Are 


If he through a natural besetment injure us, and 
is always afterwards grieved that he fell from the 
kind way, and is thus repentant, we must invari¬ 
ably forgive him as we in like circumstances wish 
to be forgiven. We are each weak at some point 
and can with difficulty refrain from some injurious 
influence or work on another. So we must repent 
towards one another, and hope to be forgiven. 
This many of us do, in a poor degree. Christ is 
stronger than we, and can always do that which 
we are, sometimes, only strong enough to desire 
to do, and often, we are too weak even to desire. 

He forgave those who took part in His crucifix¬ 
ion, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know 
not what they do. ” But, if we knowingly crucify 
Him afresh, and put Him to open shame by our 
bad discipleship, have we assurance of forgiveness? 
Jesus had gone into the house of a sinner named 
Zacchaeus, and His followers murmured at it. 
But the man had repented. As a thank-offering 
he had immediately given the Lord half of his 
goods, for the use of the poor, and had promised 
that if he had exacted wrongfully from any man 
he would restore him fourfold. Little wonder 
that our Lord was a willing guest at his table. 
This man was better company than the religious 
but unrepentant class whom the Lord scathingly 
designated as “Offspring of vipers’’ because they 
professed religious fervour, but were full of unholy 
deeds of selfishness, and were utterly unrepentant. 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


105 


In the vision of John, Christ calls to five of the 
seven Churches of Asia to repent of their sins; but 
to the two He gives only words of consolation and 
assurance. The Church of Ephesus had done 
many good works and had much virtue, but its 
members had not been true to their first love; so 
He said to them, “Remember therefore whence 
thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; 
or else I come to thee, and will move thy candle¬ 
stick out of its place, except thou repent.” The 
Church in Pergamum had been stedfast in its 
allegiance, but had allowed false teaching and 
idolatrous usages to creep in. He warns it: 
“Repent therefore; or else I come to thee quickly, 
and I will make war against them with the sword 
of my mouth. ... To him that overcometh, 
to him will I give of the hidden manna. ” To the 
Church in Thyatira, He said, “I know thy works, 
and thy love and faith and ministry and stedfast - 
ness, and that thy last works are more than the 
first. ” But these people had received a seductive 
and idolatrous woman, and were thus corrupted 
by satanic teaching. This message is exceedingly 
significant, for this Church must still exist as He 
exhorts those in her who are not corrupted by the 
wicked woman, thus: “Nevertheless that which 
ye have, hold fast till I come. And he that over¬ 
cometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the 
end, to him will I give authority over the nations,” 
etc. But as for those who were adulterous and 


io6 Which Temple Ye Are 

idolatrous in this same Church, he promised death 
to them and their children. The Church of Sardis 
He accuses of having a name of living, but being 
dead. He calls to it to repent or He will come 
upon it, but to the few in it who overcome, He will 
confess their names before the Father and His 
angels. The Laodiceans He found so lukewarm 
that He cast them out of His mouth. They seem 
to represent the self-satisfied indifference of a large 
class of professors of Christ’s religion in this day, 
which class unless roused, will when He comes be 
utterly cast out, a useless mass. But to the 
Church at Smyrna He was so tenderly kind. 
“Fear not,” He said, “the things which thou art 
about to suffer; ... Be thou faithful unto 
death, and I will give thee the crown of life.” 
And so to the Philadelphians also was He loving 
and encouraging, thus: 

“ Because thou didst keep the word of my sted- 
fastness, I also will keep thee from the hour of temp¬ 
tation, that hour which is to come upon the whole 
world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. . . . 
He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the 
temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no 
more.” 

Surely the Christian Church of to-day would do 
well to pass through the refining fires of these 
messages to the seven Churches. As seven denotes 
completeness, and is often used as such by Christ, 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


107 


and by the inspired writers, we would expect the 
seven Churches here spoken of to be figurative 
of our entire Christendom, with all its divisions, 
its denominations, shadings of doctrine and usages; 
and with all its measures of holy usefulness, and 
unholy pretence, its greedy self-aggrandisement, 
its loathsome indifference, and its intensely earnest, 
Christlike self-sacrificial service towards the King¬ 
dom of Heaven. Five out of the seven had reason 
for repentance. Doubtless so shall we find this 
ratio to exist amongst ourselves in the entire 
nominal Christian Church of to-day. 

This apocalyptic message was too wide in its 
meaning to be intended only for the Churches to 
whom it was addressed. More than that, Christ 
said, “I will come,” and as yet His coming is not 
acknowledged amongst us. Some of us expect it 
almost now, right at our door. The gleaming of 
His Presence is already throwing rays of light into 
most unusual places, and uncovering to man’s 
indignant realization many most unholy and in¬ 
human usages which in our blindness we have 
allowed to exist to crush and impoverish our fellow 
human beings, the brethren of Jesus Christ. In 
this vision we find a vivid picture of this time of 
trial for those who choose that they will not repent. 
Read and re-read this vision until you get its true 
significance, and see if there is no resemblance, no 
relation, to our immediate day, this day of Godlike 
hope and of satanic despair. Is there any word so 


io8 


Which Temple Ye Are 


important to-day as the call to repentance? It is 
the one call which echoes all down the ages from 
Adam’s disobedience, from Cain’s murderous 
instinct, all down a warring, brawling, greedy, aye, 
carnivorous race. And still we heed it not. It 
was not sufficient that the Christ came, lived, died, 
and rose to His throne. We fell to idolatrously 
worshipping His human passion and the agony 
of His dying groans; and still men at war with 
men heeded not the love songs issuing from celestial 
heights. Still we hate in bitterness, still we take 
to ourselves that which we cannot use, still we 
allow our human affairs to proceed in such a man¬ 
ner that some of us are very nearly imbecile in 
mind and soul from idleness and luxury, and some 
of us from worklessness and starvation. The 
mass of us are worse than the animals over which 
we are given control. We strive after the things 
of the world in such a rabid carnivorous manner 
that we have no time to pause and think. Some 
few are in a degree kindly as they journey along 
the mad way. When public questions arise, the 
accepted standpoint is obvious enough, even to 
the careless eye. This will fill my coffers. This 
will pay. This will make me great. And the mad 
scramble is increasing in velocity, as the years roll 
on, in the merchandise of horses and chariots, and 
bodies and souls of men. 

But this can only continue to be our method for 
a short while now. Whether we repent of it or not, 


‘‘Father, I Have Sinned” 


109 


it shall cease by the authority of our Redeemer, 
when He shall have come into the full possession 
of His poor erring Kingdom on earth. When we 
shall sing in gladness, “The kingdom of the world is 
become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ: 
and he shall reign for ever and ever. ” When the 
four and twenty elders will worship God thus: 

“We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, 
who art and who wast; because thou hast taken thy 
great power and didst reign. And the nations were 
wrath, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead 
to be judged, and the time to give their reward to 
thy servants the Prophets, and to the Saints, and to 
them that fear thy name, the small and the great; 
and to destroy them that destroy the earth.” “And 
I (John) heard a great voice out of the throne say¬ 
ing, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and 
he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peo¬ 
ples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their 
God; and he shall wipe away every tear from their 
eyes. . . . He that overcometh shall inherit these 
things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” 

“ Behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, 
to render to each man according as his work is.” 

If we are to be rewarded according to our works, 
we shall without much difficulty perceive that we 
are in the most desperate need of true repentance 
for our strangely un-Christlike methods of living. 
If the Lord Christ would but break up this un¬ 
feeling callousness of our stony indifferent hearts, 


no 


Which Temple Ye Are 


so that we might instinctively turn in disgust and 
shame from our old methods, and begin now, in all 
departments of life, to employ the methods of the 
Kingdom of Heaven only, how soon would we 
become a happier, holier people! This I believe 
He will do, aye, is now doing. 

“Pity from thine eye let fall; 

By a look my soul recall; 

Now, the stone to flesh convert, 

Cast a look, and break my heart. 

Now, incline me to repent; 

Let me now my fall lament; 

Now, my foul revolt deplore; 

Weep, believe, and sin no more.” 

C. Wesley. 

We usually hear the parable from which the text 
of this chapter is quoted used as a call to the uncon¬ 
verted soul to turn towards the new life in Christ, 
or in common phrase to turn from a godless life to a 
Christian one. I fail utterly to see any justifica¬ 
tion for this view of our Lord’s parable. The 
Prodigal Son was as much a son as his brother who 
stayed at home with his father, and did his duty 
as a son should do. This parable was addressed to 
the Pharisees and Scribes, who were well versed 
in religious teachings and usages, a class of people 
who stood at that time for the best there was in 
religious relation to God their Father. It was not 
addressed to the godless. Forgiveness following 
true repentance to all was certainly taught by it, 
but the call was to the already religious persons, 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


hi 


those of the Faith—the Jewish Faith. To carry¬ 
out the type in our Christian dispensation, we must 
take it as an appeal, not to unbelievers, who are 
certainly not sons, but to those of us who do believe 
in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, but who 
have spent, and are still spending, our all in riotous 
living. To the fallen Church, the Sons of God 
by birth, is this call addressed by our Lord to-day, 
and who shall say that it does not apply with 
justice. 

As Israel has always been a typical people, we 
shall find many of her prefigurements being carried 
out in our nation, or spiritual Israel. There is one 
of the most essentially vital of all lessons contained 
in our union of the Church and the State in this 
country (England). The population of a country 
is composed of responsible individuals, each of 
whom has a right to a—shall we say—two-sided 
opinion or belief. The one, his religious; the 
other, his political opinion or belief. Take any 
thoughtful man and we shall find that he always 
has fixed convictions on these two lines of thought. 
All other moral convictions grow out of these, 
either from one or the other or both. He may 
love art, or literature, or travel, or the aimless 
society life, but these are not moral convictions 
but avocations, or pastimes only. How he uses 
his talent, or love of art, or literature, or travel, or 
his influence in his social life, is a matter that 
grows out of his moral convictions. The word 


112 


Which Temple Ye Are 


Church is quite correctly used as taking precedence 
of the word State. Our State is always of the 
same moral status as a whole, as our Church is in 
its individuality. A Church’s moral standing may 
not by any means be identical with the status of 
its confession. A Church’s moral standing before 
its Judge is shown by the extent to which that 
body of persons have individually carried out the 
ideals of its teaching. How we may ourselves 
judge such a body is to observe how these ideals 
are striven after in this body in its political life. 
The State cares for its children just as its religious 
heart is true to its beliefs and ideals. I repeat that 
a united Church and State is typical of this truth, 
and am in no way differentiating amongst Christ¬ 
ian denominations in favour of the Established 
Church. The Church is only peculiar as being 
typical , not as being superior, to Nonconformity, by 
any means. The true Church of Christ is selected 
from the all by right of its Christliness only. We 
can sympathize with Lowell when he sings: 


“I love the rites of England’s Church, 
I love to hear and see 
The Priest and people reading slow 
The solemn litany; 

I love to hear the glorious swell 
Of chanted psalm and prayer, 

And the deep organ’s bursting heart 
Throb through the shivering air. 
And then I murmur, 1 Surely God 
Delighteth here to dwell; 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


113 


This is the temple of His Son 
Whom He doth love so well. ’ 

But when I hear the Creed, which saith, 

This Church alone is His, 

I feel within my soul, that He 
Hath purer shrines than this. ” 

It might be quite possible for the State to assume 
the position of being a purer body than the Church, 
but that can never be actually true, because it is 
only as a Christlike body of politicans that a State 
can do Christlike service for the children of that 
State. These may not be notable catechists , but 
they must be sincere Christians or their service will 
not be vitally beneficial to the people. So it is 
only as a type that union of Church and State need 
continue for a time. The actual Church of Christ 
is wofully small, or so it looks, and it was prophesied 
to be so at the end of Satan’s reign. “ Neverthe¬ 
less, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find 
the faith on the earth?” Christ queries. 

In previous chapters we have been endeavouring 
to find out in what it is that our Christian religion 
consists, from the Master’s and His Apostles’ 
teachings; and from our finding, we feel convinced 
that there is quite sufficient evidence against us to 
justify the question, Have we the Faith at all in 
our hearts, or is it that we are as yet satisfied with 
spending our God-given substance, our talents, 
in insane and criminal ways, in riotous living? I 
am terribly afraid that we shall be reduced to a 
despairing soul-hunger before we shall be ready to 


Which Temple Ye Are 


114 

arise and go to our Father, and say, “ Father, I 
have sinned.” Or is it that our soul-hunger has 
already driven us to feed amongst the swine in 
our strivings after satisfaction of soul, and are we 
now, as a Christian people, almost ready to give 
up the husks and go in search of the beneficent 
forgiveness of our ever merciful Father? 

The yearning father saw the son afar off when he 
had yet gone but part of the way towards home. 
As Christ’s parable teaches us in this so sweet a 
way, I know that He is looking for us now to 
come to our senses and hasten home to Him. As 
I scan the daily newspapers, the one thing that 
impresses me the most deeply, is this inexorable 
unearthing of satanic oppressive usages in the 
various departments which go to make up our 
community. I think that many of us who are 
directly or indirectly responsible for these so 
atrocious and un-Christlike abuses, may well call 
for the rocks to fall on us and hide us from this 
scathing judgment under which we must soon 
writhe. Surely there will be much mourning as 
some of our ill-gotten possessions pass out of our 
greedy keeping. Surely we shall smart under the 
finger of scorn, that even God will point at us. 

“ The righteous also shall see it, and fear, and shall 
laugh at him, saying, Lo, this is the man that made 
not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of 
his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.” 
The Lord will laugh at him; for he seeth that his 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


115 

day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the 
sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor 
and needy, to slay such as are upright in the way. 
Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their 
bows shall be broken.... I have seen the wicked 
in great power, and spreading himself like a green 
tree in its native soil. But one passed by, and, lo, 
he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be 
found.” 

“ I also will laugh in the day of your calamity; I 
will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear 
cometh as a desolation, and your calamity cometh 
on as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come 
upon you. Then will they call upon me, but I will 
not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they 
shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, 
and did not choose the fear of Jehovah, they would 
none of my counsel, they depised all my reproof; 
therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, 
and be filled with their own devices. For the back¬ 
sliding of the simple shall slay them, and the care¬ 
less ease of fools shall destroy them. But whoso 
hearkeneth unto me shall dwell securely, and shall be 
quite without fear of evil.” 

Shall we be a derision to the righteous and to God 
Himself, personified in Wisdom? Or shall we look 
about us into the particular methods of our lives, 
and in thus seeing our baseness shall we decide to 
arise to our possibilities as sons, to our forgiveness 
and our restoration? 

It is within the organized Church Catholic that 


116 


Which Temple Ye Are 


repentance must begin. Who, that is at all fa¬ 
miliar with the prophetic writings, can deny this? 
It was to be in the last days, before the restoration. 
Who can be so foolish as to doubt that we are in the 
last days of the prophetic reaching? In looking 
into the particular and intricate workings of de¬ 
nominational Christendom, who shall dare to say 
that their forecast was a false one? Inspired 
writing is not always understood until after ful¬ 
filment, but in some instances the reading is not 
very difficult to the observant, and to those who are 
open to conviction, even of the preceding or con¬ 
temporary peoples. The wise men were looking 
for the Christ-child and they found Him under the 
guiding star. If we are wise in the reading of the 
inspired Word, and in reading human affairs to¬ 
day ; if we follow closely, we shall easily know where 
to find the appearance of the Christ-king, the Man 
Whom God hath ordained to save the people from 
their sins. If we do not seek and find Him, and 
repent of our unbrotherliness towards the children 
of His Kingdom, He will find us, and great will be 
our shame, when we are uncovered to the world, 
and to ourselves, in all our wickedness. 

If we believe the story of Christ and His divine 
mission, if we believe that He has already begun to 
judge the things of the earth, as to what is fit for 
the new regime, and what is not, if we think our¬ 
selves to be in a state of being saved by Him from 
our sins, how shall we face Him a little later on, 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


117 

if we do not repent from our ways, and turn our 
eyes ever on the heavenly standpoint, and work 
earnestly to help Him cleanse us from all our sin¬ 
ning, so that we may be fit temples for better 
service in the Eternal Order of the Father? How 
shall the salvation of the world at large be accom¬ 
plished, when we, the witnesses, are so untrue to 
the divine light? We should be such witnesses as 
would draw all the world to belief in our Redeemer. 
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto myself.” 

Did not this have a twofold meaning? Is it not 
for us to raise the status of practical Christianity 
up from the earth into a more sacrificial plane, a 
plane which we may share with our Lord? Would 
not this witnessing from us draw all men towards 
the Saviour, Whom we so piously profess to love, 
and even dare to profess that we serve? Do we 
serve Him, or are we joined to Mammon? What 
does the general world think of our piety? Is it 
always sure of our brotherliness? Have we, as 
persons and nation, any reason for godly sorrow¬ 
ing? We must each make our own answer to our 
Judge, Who can read our secret hearts. 

Judge not that ye be not judged. We cannot 
always read each other’s guilt or holiness aright. 
God only can do that. We had better each see 
to it that our own guilt is cleansed, and that we 
ourselves become holy, lest the Master say to us, 
“Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of 


118 


Which Temple Ye Are 


thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly 
to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” 
And so, we are only justified in giving the most 
general warning to each other, for we may not 
see so very clearly ourselves. We had better ask 
for the guidance of the Spirit of Truth so that we 
shall not err in vision. 

It is such a kindly blessing that we are promised, 
even forgiveness when we turn from our errors. 
And we shall be cleansed from all our filthiness of 
defilement if we ask for it. And we shall have 
right standpoints when we are made wise by the 
Spirit; as we are promised the Comforter, the 
Spirit of Truth, Who shall remind us of all that we 
should never have forgotten. And so the Father 
has compassion on His erring children, and brings 
them again into fellowship with Him, through 
Jesus Christ our Saviour. This is our stedfast 
hope, and we are indeed unworthy if we do not 
hasten to justify Him, in this so merciful a com¬ 
passion. 

In my childhood days, some old-fashioned 
Christian men and women, pioneers in a new and 
stem country, used weekly to meet in a simple 
prayer-meeting service. A favourite hymn with 
them, and one I seldom now hear, was 

“0 happy day, that fixed my choice 
On Thee, my Saviour and my God. 

Well may this glowing heart rejoice, 

And tell its raptures all abroad. 


“Father, I Have Sinned” 


119 


He taught me how to watch and pray, 

And live, rejoicing every day. 

Happy day, happy day, 

When Jesus washed my sins away. ” 

These are all, I believe, singing this same theme 
around the Throne of God. I saw but one of 
these strong souls in her last moments of earth life. 
I had seen this Christian live, I saw her die. 
Calmly, expectantly, serenely she went from us, 
out into her new life. I felt that it was a well com¬ 
pleted earth life. I knew that I had seen a 
redeemed soul pass into the presence of its Lord 
in serene and hopeful joy. Nothing can efface 
this from my mind, while memory remains. I 
have been privileged to see others of them live to 
old age, and I know too that they have each passed 
away as the ripe sheaf, and in great content of 
soul. I have had the privilege of intimacy with 
several souls younger than these sturdy pioneers 
of my native country, souls who have been strong 
and valiant, even heroic, in the face of difficulties 
and suffering, and in noble, though unobtrusive, 
endeavour. Some have laid their burden down 
in youth, some at high noon, some still live. 
These old and young are enough to keep my own 
soul ever in a hopeful mood of attainment in 
respect of the higher life. The witness of their 
integrity, endeavour, and endurance, through all 
phases of life; their unswerving trust in the 
Redeeming Saviour, their humility in failures, their 


120 


Which Temple Ye Are 


repentance over errors, their ready acknowledg¬ 
ment of their many weaknesses, and their entire 
conviction that at eventide all would be well, are 
more precious to me than all the theological tomes 
in Christendom. 

Repentance is a natural thing to a sincere and 
growing soul in the face of its many errors. After 
repentance, we are always the more ready to seek 
our way home to our Father Who is ever on the 
pitiful lookout for our return. While we are 
returning, our face is ever towards our home—our 
Father’s House. 

If I have not, perhaps, attained to the joyful 
assurance of some of my sainted friends, I can join 
in truest sincerity with those who sing with the 
perturbed spirit of Newman, 

“So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still 
Will lead me on, 

O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till 
The night is gone. 

And with the morn those angel faces smile, 

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.” 


CHAPTER VII 


“a people prepared for him” 

“And many of the Children of Israel shall he turn unto the 
Lord their God. And he shall go before his face in the spirit 
and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the 
children, and the disobedient to walk in the wisdom of the just; 
to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him. ” 

Luke i. 16, 17. 

“He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet. . . . 
On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, 
Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world! ” 

John i. 23, 29. 

“I pray not that thou shouldst take them from the world, 
but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. They are 
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them 
in the truth: thy word is truth. ” John xvii. 15, 16, 17. 

I F we are to be “A people prepared for Him” 
we must be a people cleansed from wilful 
sinning . “ If we say that we have no sin, we 

deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If 
we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous 
to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness. ” It may with reason be inferred 
from many passages of Scripture, that sinning 
against our brothers, is sinning against God; and 
is that so very strange when we remember that 

121 


122 


Which Temple Ye Are 


God is the Father of us all? Why should He not 
resent our wicked treatment of His other children? 
Looking at it from a family standpoint, how could 
He help being severe with us, if we persist in 
injuring His other children? And what is so 
ignoble is that it is always the weaker children we 
hurt most cruelly. They are the only ones that 
will submit to our fratricidal conduct. Could we 
expect our Perfect Father to respect us for this? 
And as Christ is our Perfected Elder Brother, how 
can He tolerate this cruel instinct in us, this greedy 
spirit of ours which strives to fatten on what is 
crushed out of the lives of the helpless? He said, 
“Inasmuch as ye did it (or did it not) unto one of 
these least, ye did it (or did it not) unto me.” 
How could it be otherwise if He be a kind and 
protecting Elder Brother? The lesson is clearly 
evident that the complement of our duty towards 
God is our duty towards man. On these two 
duties hang all the Law and the Prophets. 1 The 
cleansing of our hearts and lives from sin is there¬ 
fore twofold in its action and issue. First, in our 
willingness to turn from our disobedience to God’s 
Law, and our insulting doubt of Him; and 
secondly, to be willing to carry out His Law, as it 
bears on the lives of our fellow human beings. 
Either, without the other, is void. Unless our 
hearts are in harmony with our Father and His 
government—under His Son—and also with our 
fellow-man, our religion is void. It is of no use to 


“A People Prepared for Him” 123 


cry piously, as some of us do, Lord! Lord! unless 
we have ministered to the race in the way for 
which we each are best fitted, be it physical, 
intellectual, or spiritual. Neither is there merit 
in doing vainglorious and ostentatious service in 
an almost antagonistic spirit to organized religion, 
as some of us do; although by the latter means 
some needy ones do benefit, though by the higher 
law we be not credited with the kindness. 

So our hearts and minds must first be cleansed 
from wrong ideas of what duty really is. Now this 
is quite a difficult and intricate function for the 
soul of a man to perform in sincerity. “Stem 
daughter of the Voice of God! ’ ’ Stem indeed thou 
art in thy requirements, but how beneficent in 
thy issues and thy rewards! 

If there is one point in the reconstruction of the 
brotherhood of man in which we must be very 
lenient with each other, it is in the matter of fixed 
ideas. Some of these ideas have been grounded 
into us by years of training just as our language has 
been, just as our mode of dressing our physical 
bodies has been. It is right here that our immi¬ 
nent danger lies. Many ideas from which we must 
be cleansed, we now hold sacred, or at least 
inviolate. Some persons whom we may think of as 
being infidels, may only be earnest seekers after 
truth. Some religious persons whom we may 
think of as being highly hypocritical may only 
be narrow in their vision of what true religion 


i 24 Which Temple Ye Are 


consists in. Habit is so powerful a factor in human 
life that many of us accept the digested spiritual 
and economic beliefs and usages of our forefathers 
in toto and endeavour to transmit them to posterity, 
and think ourselves wise in so doing. And are we 
not righteous in our intentions in so doing if we 
believe that these convictions of our forebears are 
based on wisdom and truth? Certainly we must 
be. But, do we prove all things and hold fast 
only that which is good? This is the active prin¬ 
ciple on which we as individuals, or nations, rise or 
fall, develop, or die by process of inward decay. 
One often has a terrible struggle in this sense to 
know which voice is speaking from out his ego; 
his conscience, or his habits and the conventional 
usage which environ him like a network. So I 
claim that in the reconstruction of the brotherhood 
of man on the lines of real and absolute Christ¬ 
ianity, we must be very lenient with one another 
and bear one another’s burdens, until we have all 
of the Cain-like hate, the cruel uncharity, washed 
out of our hearts. “And as ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” 
If we obey this command we shall try to see 
things from each other’s viewpoint and give 
good measure where we cannot agree. And we 
shall surely not agree on minor points. I fail to 
see two similar flowers or leaves. I think they tell 
us that not even two blades of grass in all the 
beautiful meadows that the good Father has given 


“A People Prepared for Him” 125 


us are quite alike in detail. Is it to be wondered 
that two human beings differ in contour and colour 
of mental make up? Judge not that ye be not 
judged. How can we judge our brother’s mind 
rightly? We can easily see if in conduct he openly 
breaks human-made laws, or some of the ten laws 
given us by God through Moses, but who shall 
judge his brother as to the conviction of his mind 
regarding religious or economic questions? I 
have stumbled upon the strangest cases of spiritual 
blindness at times where the intent, I was forced 
to believe, was most righteous. Where persons 
refused to hear, or believe, that we are called upon 
to do other than try to be moral ourselves; where 
they held that the pain and sorrow and suffering 
was overdrawn and “ could not be helped anyway ”; 
where they insisted that some classes of people 
never could ‘‘get along” and that it would always 
be so. What can one do but pray, “O God, open 
thou their eyes”? 

If we can awaken these sleepy ones, well and 
good, but if not, we are scarcely justified in 
suspecting them of being deliberately unsym¬ 
pathetic. We must be very careful in this 
arrogant method of judging others because their 
ideas are still fixed, while perhaps by .some means 
over which we had no control or voice, ours became 
more flexible. God made many pairs of eyes to 
see with and ears to hear with, but he made Truth 
a unity. 


126 


Which Temple Ye Are 


We may be too sleepy as yet to search wisely 
for truth, or we may be approaching her from many 
directions in our instinctive search for her. But 
we shall never find her while we are quarrelling on 
the way. We may certainly help each other to 
find her by the kindly spoken word of direction, 
given in a helpful spirit only. But we each have 
one common source of knowledge to assist us in 
knowing what is good and what is true. It is not 
however our inherited convictions or our divers 
catechisms, but God’s illumined Word. “Thy 
Word is a lamp unto my feet, and light unto my 
path.” 

If we studied God’s Word more carefully and 
with less preconceived ideas, we should find plenty 
of reason given for a united effort to cleanse our¬ 
selves as entities of a great nation. It is a signifi¬ 
cant fact to many of us, and one often overlooked 
by many of us, that there are few issues which 
arise in our modern everyday life, or in the more 
general public affairs, which may not be made 
quite clear to us as to our duty, by the teaching 
of Christ only. In some instances, nay most, the 
teaching of the Old Testament refers to the old law 
only, that which Christ refers to as lasting only 
till John the Baptist. Many of these utterances 
refer in prophetic warning to the time of the King¬ 
dom of God which the prophets foresaw was to be 
established on the earth in the last days. These 
latter are for our admonition and instruction. 


“A People Prepared for Him” 127 


But with Christ’s teaching there is no such dis¬ 
tinction. We must weigh it all as though it were 
gold. It is more than spiritual gold; it is a collec¬ 
tion of rarest gems, precious stones, that shall 
be the crowning riches of the Kingdom of Heaven 
on earth. 

In this mirror of dazzling redemptive truths we 
shall see ourselves in all our filth and hunger and 
ragged nakedness. If we thus see ourselves to 
be in a state that requires our complete restoration, 
then surely it is our natural mental attitude to be 
in a state of repentance. But of what use is 
repentance without the cleansing to follow? It is 
part of the preparation. It was this process that 
restored the prodigal son to usefulness and his 
father’s favour. Then surely it is our next duty 
to pray, each of us in full sincerity of mind and 
soul, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and 
renew a right (or stedfast) spirit within me.” 
For we can do no lasting good works until we are 
thus fitted. If we have not the desire within us to 
be wholly cleansed we must pray for a clearer 
vision of our sinfulness so that we shall shrink in 
horror from our defilements of spirit and mind. 
We had better examine, each for ourselves, our 
fixed ideas and usages. In all movements, the 
mind, or somebody’s mind, is the first point of 
attack, and I think that we shall ultimately 
conclude that it is the only one; as all conduct 
is the result of thought, or want of thought. So 


128 


Which Temple Ye Are 


every thought of the mind must be tried by the 
teaching of Christ, and we shall soon see just where 
we are clean, and where we are unclean. We have 
noted that habit is extremely potent in controlling 
our thoughts. This being true we shall examine 
our mental attitudes by the light of the best we 
know. This is a self-examination that is abso¬ 
lutely necessary, since no one of us is capable of 
judging another, without prejudice, on any given 
subject accurately. 

At times we may find ourselves in a quandary 
from which it is difficult to find our way out clearly. 
What shall we do? We may have to decide a 
course of action on some question in almost a 
moment, with no time for quiet retreat and study; 
indeed this is the common rule. How shall we be 
sure to do right? How shall we be sure that our 
mental attitude is clear from selfishness, in so short 
a deciding moment? Is it not wisest to decide to 
do the most kindly, the most just, thing that sug¬ 
gests itself at the time, at the same moment breath¬ 
ing a prayer to God to keep our motive clean in our 
decision? What better can we do? Is this our 
habit? If in the afterward, that follows all our ac¬ 
tions, we see where we think we might have done 
better, we shall at least have learned a lesson for 
future guidance. Sometimes our conduct is better 
in motive and result than it looks to a careless eye. 
We had better not judge even our own weak selves 
too harshly. We had better keep our eye on the 


“A People Prepared for Him” 129 


Perfect One in order that we may become more 
like Him. Some of our uncleanness takes a vast 
deal of patient endeavour before it is fully removed, 
and even then it seems to have a recurring tend¬ 
ency, to reappear in us. Sometimes this is a 
wearisome process, and our hearts grow faint with 
discouragement. 

As service for the race is our only legitimate 
avocation in earth life, we had better not wait for 
entire cleanness of heart and mind before beginning 
to exercise this kinglike function of humanity. 
“That ye bear one another’s burdens.” How 
shall we ever arrive at perfection if we do not help 
one another? But, one will say, in his zeal for 
religiosity, Christ will make us all perfect some 
day. Will He, think you? Perhaps it would be 
well for our over-zealous friend to look into this 
subject for awhile. Perhaps he needs some of his 
fixed ideas shaken somewhat. We delight to agree 
with him, that in, and by, Christ, shall we be 
cleansed and made perfect, from perfection unto 
perfection. But for a miraculous perfection of 
cleanliness to be thrust upon a soul of man by our 
Redeemer is not taught nor inferred in all our 
Scripture. Of Himself it is said, 

“Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up 
prayers and supplications with strong crying and 
tears unto him that was able to save him from death, 
and having been heard for his godly fear, though he 
was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which 


130 


Which Temple Ye Are 


he suffered: and having been made perfect, he be¬ 
came unto all them that obey him the author (or 
cause) of eternal salvation.” 

Christ is in this quotation affirmed to be the cause 
of salvation to those who obey Him. If our sal¬ 
vation depends on our obedience to Christ, I think 
that some of us had better re-set a few of our fixed 
ideas. If the very anointed One conquered with 
such struggling and prayer, shall we pitifully weak 
and unclean ones escape all endeavour? The cause 
of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him , 
the text said. It is in the light of this obedience that 
our service must take form. If we do not feel will¬ 
ing to obey, nor desire to be used in service, we had 
better make a study of Paul’s warning that follows 
in the next chapter. It is a very crucial word to 
those who believe in Christ as Redeemer, but who 
do not obey Him as to works. James cannot excel 
Paul here in intensity of exhortation regarding 
service. If we bear nothing but thorns and thistles, 
we are described rejected, and “nigh unto a curse” 
in our community. 

We cannot live one day without having made use 
of our opportunity to influence the state of our 
fellows, either for good or for ill. As there is no 
absolute stagnation in matter, neither is there 
absolute stagnation in a soul’s influence. We are 
either aiding Satan by tainting every other soul 
with whom we come in contact, by our uncleanness; 
or we are aiding the Lord Christ to bring about His 


“A People Prepared for Him” 131 


complete reign, by giving what we can of good to 
the race and endeavouring with them to live as 
cleanly and sanely as it is our privilege to be 
capable of doing. We each radiate influence, be 
we as exclusive and reserved in our habits as we 
may. Our responsibility is at once a dread thing 
and a privilege. We must, in a Christlike way, 
strive with tears and prayers that we do no wrong 
to our fellow, or else how shall we face our Elder 
Brother? 

“Exert thy will, and use it to control; 

God gave thee jurisdiction of thy soul, 

All thine immortal powers bring into play, 

Think, act, strive, reason, then look up and pray. ” 

E. W. Wilcox. 

We must never grow weary. We may be sure 
that no sincere effort to free the soul from its 
defilement will go unrewarded by God, the Just 
One. We cannot too often remind ourselves that 
“Virtue is its own reward.’* It were reward 
enough when we realize what virtue of heart 
ultimately means for us. We had better fre¬ 
quently recall to our consciousness the thought 
contained in Tennyson’s well-known lines, 

“That men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things. ” 

Or, we rise to the higher life on the steps of our 
experiences, both of successes and of failures. 
Another poet cheers us on the way by singing to us 
thus: 


132 


Which Temple Ye Are 


“Count the milestones one by one? 

No! no counting, only trusting 
It is better farther on. ” 

We rejoice to learn in the parable that the son 
went to his father in his unclean, hungry, and 
ragged condition, and that the father embraced 
him on his arrival before the son was cleansed, 
clothed, and fed. It was the returning in contri¬ 
tion of spirit that won the father’s embrace. 
Doubtless cleansing preceded the putting on of the 
best robes, shoes, etc., as cleansing was an import¬ 
ant ordinance for a Jew. He were yet an ungrate¬ 
ful renegade did he not conform to the usage. 
Then, after the robing came the feast, which 
further prepared him for reinstatement in his 
father’s service. If we are a People Prepared for 
Him, we must use this same formula which was 
left us by our Saviour for our guidance in this 
preparation for His presence and service. It is 
just as needful for us to be reinstated, though 
we be sons, as it was for the son in the illustrative 
parable left us by our Lord. 

Selfishness was the cause of this son’s fall, and 
is the cause of all spiritual disease and disorganiza¬ 
tion of our physical, mental, or spiritual balance. 
That alone is what we must strive to eradicate. 
Our convictions and usages must pass under the 
cleansing, purifying fires of Christ’s teaching and 
commands, for we learn that we shall be rejected 
if we do not obey these. Do we obey? If not, 


“A People Prepared for Him” 133 


are we not at present rejected? Are we intending 
quickly to arise and go to our Father for restora¬ 
tion? Were it not wiser to do so than to continue 
in this rejected condition? Surely many of us will 
thus strive to become a People Prepared for Him. 
Shall many of us be like those of whom the prophet 
Isaiah wrote thus?— 

“And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in 
Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called 
holy, even every one that is written among the living 
in Jerusalem; when the Lord shall have washed away 
the filth of the daughter of Zion, and shall have 
purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, 
by the spirit of justice, and by the spirit of burning.” 

We must plainly see that obedience to His—shall 
we term it—cleansing ethics, a process of the 
purging out of the selfish taint in us, is the com¬ 
pletion of our repentance, and the grounds of our 
continued sonship, our eternal life. 

“ These are they that came out of the great tribula¬ 
tion, and they washed their robes, and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before 
the throne of God; and they serve him day and night 
in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall 
spread his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger 
no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the 
sun strike upon them, or any heat; for the Lamb that 
is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, 
and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: 
and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” 


134 


Which Temple Ye Are 


In thus endeavouring to prepare ourselves as a 
people for His active service in connexion with His 
coming complete reign, the process seems to divide 
itself into two initial lines of preparation, and may 
be described as that of the Old Law and New Law. 
Without going into the old restrictive law of “Thou 
shalt not,” and “Thou shalt,” we shall take it as a 
disciplinary regime which was to bring the chosen 
people along until the time of John, who preached 
the law of repentance and forgiveness. He was 
followed by the Christ, who came bringing to this 
people, the Abundant Life. The restrictions were 
not withdrawn but were merged into the new 
regime. The Old Law seemed to be symbol of 
cleansing, the New Law of our being clothed upon 
by righteous deeds and partaking of the spiritual 
food of the teaching of Christ. This fits us for 
the more Abundant Life, the life hid in Christ. 
With the careful restrictions of purity, we must 
add the development in Christ of all our, now, 
almost dormant energies and talents. We have 
striven in the preceding pages to emphasize the 
need of our being cleansed as part of our prepara¬ 
tion, but we find that this is largely a destructive 
process. We must destroy the selfish instinct 
that has developed so suicidally within us. In 
order to preserve ourselves we must destroy this 
tendency that is so horribly prolific in hate, greed 
and lust: we must crowd out of our mental attitude 
towards each other, hate, by overwhelming love 


“A People Prepared for Him” 135 


of the brotherhood of man in the individual and 
in the whole. We must replace greed, by a far- 
reaching kindness and a giving of our talents, 
time, and wealth in a glad offering to our brothers, 
striving to emulate our Lord Who gave His all 
for our redemption. We must temper all of our 
desires until they are no longer sinful lusts of the 
flesh; replacing sensual lust by holy affection; 
lust of power by, “In honour preferring one 
another,” lust of fame by a humble and meek 
spirit which acknowledges all gifts as from God. 
In the New Law we are taught to fill ourselves so 
full of love, in its various phases, that it displaces 
and overcomes all tendencies of hate—that unholy 
brood of selfishness by which we are too much 
controlled. We shall do well to remember the 
parable of the man whose unclean spirit passed 
out of him and who, wandering about seeking rest 
and finding none, returned again to the man; and 
finding him swept and garnished he goeth and 
bringeth seven more spirits more evil than himself, 
and they entered into the man and the last state of 
this man was worse than the first. If we empty 
our lives, and sweep and garnish them and leave 
them empty, we make ourselves an abiding place 
of all evil. We must fill ourselves with the Holy 
Spirit, and there will be no room for the demons 
within us. This was where the Old Law failed. 
It swept clean with its restrictions, it was made 
splendid by its ritual; but it did not keep itself 


136 


Which Temple Ye Are 


occupied by love, kindness, and holy desires and 
aims, and humble joy by preferring one another. 
And so our Lord found these empty ritualists in 
a state which was worse than irreligious. His 
denunciation is without precedent as coming 
from his gracious Person. 

“ And I say unto you, that many shall come from the 
east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven; but 
the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the 
outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the 
gnashing of teeth.” “Ye offspring of viper, how 
can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of 
the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” 
“Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the 
harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you. For 
John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and 
ye believed him not; but the publicans and the har¬ 
lots believed him: and ye, when ye saw it, did not 
even repent yourselves afterwards, that ye might 
believe him.” “Ye are of your father the devil, and 
the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was 
a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in 
the truth, because there is no truth in him. When 
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a 
liar, and the father thereof.” 

It is clear enough from these few quotations of 
our Lord, that He found the leading Jewish re¬ 
ligionists of His day pretty well occupied by the 
many demons of the parable. They had swept 


“A People Prepared for Him” 137 


and garnished, but had remained empty of good 
works. They made broad phylacteries and 
trimmed their garments more than ever—but they 
bound heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, 
on men’s shoulders, and did not move a finger to 
help. They made long prayers, but devoured 
widows’ houses. They compassed sea and land 
to make one proselyte, and then made him two¬ 
fold more the son of Gehenna than themselves. 
They tithed the mint, anise, and cummin but 
withheld justice, mercy, and faith. They had 
strained out the gnat, and swallowed the camel. 
These were indeed Blind Guides. 

It would be well for our spiritual guides of to¬ 
day, to study carefully these seven pronounce¬ 
ments of Woe, and see if there be any of this Curse 
of Woe hanging over us as a religious people. We 
must be brought to remember that The Lord shall 
judge His people and that it is a fearful thing to fall 
into the hands of the Living God. We may have 
an idea of the methods of the coming examining 
judgment as we study the very awful accusations 
and denouncements by our Lord of our prototype, 
the Jew, as He found him in all his hollow zeal. 
We cannot differentiate between the various 
classes of religious persons to-day. 

The Pharisees and Scribes seem to cover, in 
type, the two classes of religionists in Christendom 
to-day, which might be loosely described as, those 
who take part in active official religious service, 


138 


Which Temple Ye Are 


and those who make a study of doctrinal differences, 
criticisms, and all subjects which are in the domain 
of the scholarly theologian. Doubtless there were 
some excellent Jews who were Pharisees, we know 
of at least one. Doubtless there were some Scribes 
whose aims were higher than the mere sophistical 
quibbles of sectarian wrangling. That these two 
classes have their parallel with us to-day few 
will deny. That some of both of these classes are 
at least not quite empty of good occupants, that 
some are filled with helpful, loving service, we are 
glad to admit. We cannot differentiate between 
the private man in his pew, and the man who con¬ 
fesses to leadership by the occupation of the pulpit, 
or by use of the critical pen. All come uncon¬ 
sciously under either of the two types, or often, 
under both. We all of us love the performance of 
our pet ritual, even though it be a simple one; 
and also to struggle as learnedly as we may with 
the entangling and intricate minor doctrines. The 
one doctrine which should hold eminent domain 
in our Christian Church and all its schools and sub¬ 
schools is this reasonable question, “What does 
Jesus Christ teach us is the way to co-operate 
with Him in saving the people—ourselves included 
—from torture? No! from sinning?” A child 
can study this doctrine, and Himself told us that 
it was the gospel for the little children; as we are 
all obliged to become as they are, easily led, easily 
taught, obedient, trustful, affectionate, restful, 


“A People Prepared for Him’ , 139 


in the heart of the Father. We must allow this 
one doctrine to become our dominant idea that it 
may influence our every thought and the action 
that follows, or does not follow, the thought of a 
man. This will surely be the best robe for us to 
wear. We must admit that many men look very 
pretty and fine in what Dr. Pusey called “hand¬ 
some dresses,” but are these the garments that 
will assure him a welcome at the marriage feast of 
the Lamb? Scholarly (or otherwise) criticism is 
only expression of difference of opinion amongst 
men. These variants must always be in the minor 
doctrines. But, I truly believe that all true 
Christians (by faith) will agree with me, after a 
little consideration, that only the one question is 
of vital importance to one who claims to be a be¬ 
liever in the Christian religion, namely, “What 
does Jesus Christ teach us is the way to co-operate 
with Him in saving the people from their sins?” 
What else can possibly matter if we become a sin¬ 
less people, as sinless as the little child of whom He 
said, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” So 
I feel sure that all those who are searching, like the 
valiant knights of old, for the “Holy Grail,” will 
agree that this question alone is vital. And they 
will agree that the claim of this doctrine is well and 
solidly founded, which cannot be said of many 
minor ones. If, then, this is the vital question of 
belief, why do we not unite on this one point, and 
let each attend to his own minor matters? A 


140 


Which Temple Ye Are 


truly Christian Church should be liberal enough 
to cover all minor differences, so long as its mem¬ 
bers throw their life and soul into the mission of 
saving the people (themselves included) from their 
sins. I read in an excellent article in a current 
religious magazine this fine thought, “ Dead things 
are uniform—where there is life there is variety. 
You may make machines all of one pattern, but 
not men. Skulls have more of a common likeness 
than souls. And so where life is, and especially 
Divine Life, there of necessity is diversity.’* 
Above, the writer had said, “A Church cannot be 
catholic and narrow. Neither can it be catholic 
and stationary.” It would be well for many of 
us to think these lines over carefully, as there is 
much food for thought in them regarding bondage 
to our fixed ideas. As we have said, we should be 
very lenient with each other in these minor 
matters. Some one may say, But you are assum¬ 
ing the right to replace many doctrines by one 
which is the best in your judgment. My only 
answer is, Go to your Scriptures and search each 
one for himself. In this I do not feel guilty of 
presumption in quoting my Saviour for my 
vindication, “My teaching is not mine, but his 
that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, 
he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of 
God, or whether I speak from myself.” We 
should remember that when the holy city is an 
accomplished reality, God says that, “They shall 


“A People Prepared for Him” 141 


teach no more every man his neighbour, and every 
man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they 
shall all know me, from the least of them unto the 
greatest of them.” 

This would seem to forecast a time when right 
and holy thoughts have displaced the evil by which 
we are now far too completely occupied. If we 
have repented and have been cleansed, at least 
in part, from our defilement of evil thoughts and 
habits, and have put on the robe of righteousness 
and good determination in service for the race, 
then will come our feast of good things. This the 
pitiful Father offers us very fully in His Written 
Word, the Holy Scriptures; and in the Incarnate 
Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. All Scripture points 
to the Redeemer of men’s souls. He claimed to 
be the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. This 
food will ensure us of a useful earth life, and an 
immortal future. 

I firmly believe that the future life is also to be 
a useful one. Between the lines, we may find 
suggested by the Scripture a state of great activity 
amongst the angels, spirits of the prophets, and the 
spirits of just men made perfect. In this I do 
rejoice, for who shall say but that we may be 
allowed the wonderful privilege of doing in another 
world that which we were quite unable to accom¬ 
plish in this. I cannot see this to be a wholly 
visionary hope, for how shall we grow from perfec¬ 
tion unto perfection without some useful, unselfish 


142 


Which Temple Ye Are 


avenue for cultivating and exercising our spiritual 
energies? God does all the work of the Universe. 
Christ does all the work that is required to fill His 
mission, define it as you will. The Holy Spirit we 
must consider as the obedient Executive of God, 
under Christ. Surely, we read much of the work 
of the Holy Spirit. If we are in union with this 
Trinity in One, shall we not gladly work also? I 
pray my merciful Father that the circumstance of 
physical death shall not end, but begin, what ser¬ 
vice is within my small gifts to perform. A heaven 
with no hope of happy useful occupation is an in¬ 
conceivable proposition to me. As a small child 
I dreaded this inactive sort of joy (?), that I was 
led to presume was the state of the blest. Why 
should we be obliged to have such strange experi¬ 
ences in this kindergarten world if it were not to 
prepare us as a people for Him to do His higher 
service? Sometimes as one’s imagination reaches 
far out beyond all present place, condition, and 
time, into a field of hope that has been kindled at 
the sacred fires of Scripture and the soul’s instinc¬ 
tive desires, one feels a great longing to go home. 
Home, where the school may be a little less trying, 
where the efforts may be a little less futile, where 
one may be encouraged a little by the helpful smile 
of approval. Where the weakness and pain of the 
physical body do not hamper and limit and dis¬ 
courage us so sadly. But we must be brave. 

If we do not take our mind, memory, culture, 


“A People Prepared for Him” 143 


character, etc., into another life with us, just what 
is it that we do take? Will some kind theologian 
or scientist tell us this? What could accompany 
the spirit, the soul, but these qualities? What 
would be the state of an ego deprived of these? 
True, miracles of conversion do take place in this 
life, in what seems to be a moment, and may not 
the same thing occur at the moment of dissolution, 
as in the dying thief? But Christ invited this 
repentant one to come with him to hear the preach¬ 
ing of the word, that doubtless was to change his 
character. I think that this is a well-founded 
assumption, as we have previously noted. But, 
when we know for certainty that if we are to live 
eternally we must change from our old selves to a 
higher, purer creature in Christ Jesus, why do we 
not see it that we must begin earnestly and im¬ 
mediately to turn from our old evil characteristics 
and become likeminded unto our Saviour? Paul 
tells the Philippians (and tells us too, or our 
Scriptures are void), 

“ Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ 
Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the 
being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, 
but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant 
being made in the likeness of men; and being found 
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming 
obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross. 
... So then my beloved . . . work out your 
own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God 


144 


Which Temple Ye Are 


who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his 
good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings 
and questioning; that ye may become blameless and 
harmless, children of God without blemish in the 
midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among 
whom ye are seen as lights in the world, holding forth 
the word of life. 

The more we examine the Word of God written 
down for us by the prophets, and later by the 
Apostles, the more shall we find that this Christ- 
like humility, this emptying of one’s self of self to 
be filled with Him, is the one absolutely imperative 
duty or office for a soul who is intent on entering 
on the sacrificial service of the Messiah. How 
shall we feast on Him if we be the hold of demons, 
unclean spirits, and every unclean and hateful 
bird? If we be cleansed, but empty, how quickly 
should we invite the Holy Presence to take pos¬ 
session of us lest this dread thing should happen 
and that we should have to consent to this horrid 
occupation of creatures, who are by far worse than 
our own first selves. We have, in youth, been 
frightened miserably by lurid visions of a yawning 
place of torment, ever burning, ever awaiting, 
ever hungry for more victims to fill its Molech- 
like abyss. While we are as yet “mere animals” 
perhaps it is as well to frighten us with visions of 
threatening physical pain. When we become 
reborn into immortality we feel that we know that 
it is torment beyond all physical torment, to be 


“A People Prepared for Him” 145 


refilled by a satanic legion of spirits. I feel con¬ 
vinced that in all God’s glorious universe you shall 
not find a reason for believing that a soul can be 
filled with that peace of God which passeth all 
understanding, while as yet he is filled with all 
sorts of defiling desires, aims, and selfish instincts, 
whether in this world or the other. 

If we are to be a temple of God we must become 
a people prepared for Him. We must repent of our 
sinning. We must be cleansed from our habits of 
evil, hate, greed, and lustful desires. We must 
be clothed upon by love, kindness, and holy aims 
and desires. We must feed upon the Bread of 
Life as we find it in our Lord. We must be 
nourished and strengthened by the glorious 
promises of our Creator as given to us all 
along since Adam’s day, until the Redeemer’s 
final victory over our sins. We must give our 
service as empty vessels for the Master’s use com¬ 
plete. To rise to the stature of Sons of God, joint 
heirs with our Elder Brother, is an honour which 
all true souls must desire, be they great in this 
world, or small. The attaining to this sonship is 
the result of holiness in desire and life. Thus each 
citizen of our Empire may aspire to it, not by the 
wealth of Mammon, nor by ancient earthly suc¬ 
cession, nor by some one great deed which may have 
pleased a passing sovereign; but by the riches of a 
graceful, loving spirit, by rebirth into the immortal 
life, and by an earth life whose every deed is 


10 


146 


Which Temple Ye Are 


pleasing to our Abiding Sovereign King, whose 
home is in heaven. We do not have to go to Him, 
for if we invite Him He will come in and sup with 
us, and we shall be in heaven indeed, while still 
in our preparatory stage of life. If we did but 
realize this, I feel that we would use every obtain¬ 
able effort of our souls, all our volition of deter¬ 
minate attaining, in order to fit ourselves for our 
illustrious guests. 

“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, 

The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide; 

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, 

Help of the helpless, O abide with me. 

I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless, 

Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness; 

Where is death’s sting? Where grave thy victory? 

I triumph still, if Thou abide with me. ” 


H. F. Lyte. 


CHAPTER VIII 


‘ ‘ I WILL COUNSEL THEE WITH MINE EYE UPON THEE ’ ’ 

“ I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt 
go: I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee. Be ye not as 
the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding; whose 
trappings must be bit and bridle to hold them in... . But 
he that trusteth in Jehovah, loving kindness shall compass him 
about.” Psalm xxxii. 8, 9, 10. 

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, immovable, 
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know 
that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. ” 1 Cor. xv. 58. 


“The work is thine, not mine, O Lord! 
It is Thy race we run; 


Give light, and then shall all I do 
Be well and truly done. ” 


H. Bonar. 



HEN we realize that we are in a measure a 


V V people prepared for Him by repentance 
and cleansing, and by being clothed upon with 
holy desires, we shall not only be fit for, at least, 
small work, but we shall be filled with joy in being 
able to do that which we find ourselves called upon 
to do. We begin the Abundant Life. This is 
partaking of the living spirit of the living Christ. 
We shall enter into His spirit of self-renunciation 


147 


148 


Which Temple Ye Are 


and love for the children of men. We shall know 
that He is not now so much a crucified Jesus of 
Nazareth, as He is a risen Christ, Son of the Blessed 
One; that He not only came, but is come, here 
and now; that He is controlling all our proceedings 
and is an actual Presence; that the Spirit of Truth 
is bringing to our minds the things which Jesus 
taught and which we too largely ignore; that this 
Holy Executive is with us always, and is ever ready 
and desirous to give us the help and counsel (under 
Christ) that we require. This everyday, every - 
moment living in the conscious presence of the 
spiritual world, this “cloud of witnesses,” when 
combined with constant prayer to the Father for 
the aid that He alone can send us, will give us a 
sense of calm security that the world, the flesh, 
and Satan himself cannot overthrow. To incor¬ 
porate all this into our consciousness as an absolute 
verity is the necessary complement of our intel¬ 
lectual preparation. The mental training, though 
important at this age, is much less so than this 
other training of the consciousness of the soul. 
The latter is the Abundant Life indeed. Abun¬ 
dant, because it is only limited by God’s will con¬ 
cerning our labour for Him. 

If He wishes us to do this small act, we shall do 
it gladly, as a little child. If He bid us do some 
more momentous act, we shall rise to the occasion 
with fortitude, and with a courage, born not of our 
own might, but of knowing that as our days are so 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


149 


shall our strength be, for God hath declared it. 
It is He “Who rideth upon the heavens for thy 
help, and in his excellency on the skies. The 
eternal God is thy dwelling place, and underneath 
are the everlasting arms.” The wise man had 
observed that “The race is not to the swift, nor 
the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the 
wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor 
yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance 
happeneth to them all.” If we interpret chance 
as meaning the providential will of God concerning 
us, the passage gives a realistic idea of the foolish¬ 
ness of thinking that we cannot do that which in our 
inner consciousness we feel called upon to do. 
Though we be slow and weak, lacking in wealth, 
unfavoured by men, still God can use us if He 
needs us. We have the notable examples of 
Moses and Paul, which should prove to us that 
obedience is wisdom. These men had the qualities 
which God required them to use for His service. 
He supplied that which they lacked. But had 
they refused the call, our religious history would 
be without two of its most important figures. 
Sometimes an important message can be carried 
by a child, but the child must be obedient to his 
instructions. If our life is consecrated to God and 
is hidden in Christ, no power on earth, or in the 
realms of evil, can hasten or hinder, mar or make, 
our service towards the race. 

Jesus discovered that obedience to the will of 


150 


Which Temple Ye Are 


the Father gave Him full authority over all things, 
both in heaven and on earth. Certainly, because 
His will and His Father’s were one. “Both wills 
were in one stature.” His life was hidden in 
God. He was the first fruits and drew His life 
and will from the Father. We must draw our life 
and will from God through Him. It is of no use 
appealing to the Father ignoring the Son, for He 
spoke to us the words of explanatory command, 
thus, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased; hear ye him. ” God will not speak to us, 
other than in wrath, if we thus insult His Son. 
For, if we thus sin after we are instructed as to the 
office of our Redeemer we are subject to “A 
certain fearful expectation of judgment.” 

“A man that hath set at naught Moses* law dieth 
without compassion on the word of two or three wit¬ 
nesses : of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall 
he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the 
Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the cove¬ 
nant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, 
and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace ?” 

The old law punished wilful insult to the law of 
Moses by death. The new law teaches that the 
death of the soul is the result of wilfully resisting 
the authority and commands of the Lord Christ, 
our Leader into our spiritual Canaan. 

Obedience to the written word, as it bears on the 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


151 

cultivated consciousness, will be followed and 
supplemented by direction in all our activities. 
We shall be ministered to when in our weakness 
and ignorance we seem to come short of ability 
to perform. The sure knowledge that we have 
the hosts of heaven, under Christ, to uphold us 
in any righteous service that we are really called 
upon to do, is surely sufficient to give us that 
stability of purpose that is essential to the accom¬ 
plishment of all real work. I think that this is the 
secret of the stedfastness of the martyrs. They 
believed that Christ was a reality. It was infinitely 
wiser to be true to Him, and their own ultimate 
welfare, than to enjoy the approval of the wicked 
for a season. They believed that it did not profit 
a man to gain the whole world if thereby he lost 
his soul’s life eternally. Have we this stedfastness 
of the saints? If we have not, it is because we do 
not believe—or perhaps realize—that we are 
under the instructing and counselling eye of the 
Father. And so we act as though we had no 
understanding, and have to be hampered by the 
bit and bridle of human laws. We try to obey 
human-made laws because the shadow of the 
prison is ever threatening us. We do not expect 
even our most pious friends to obey the decalogue 
entirely. Such a man would stand out in relief 
amongst us like a lone tree in a pastureland, notice¬ 
able from all directions. If a man obeyed the 
laws of the Son of the Blessed One absolutely, we 


152 


Which Temple Ye Are 


would either worship him, or slay him. And yet 
we are each absolutely commanded thus to do. 

An intelligent study of the Inspired Scriptures, 
as it bears on our revolting conditions to-day, will 
make us see clearly that sin is the disease of the 
mind which brings ultimate death to the soul; and 
that sin towards God is identical with sin towards 
the children of the race. This should urge us on 
to sane, but energetic action. We know, by the 
Inspired Word, that if we sincerely endeavour to do 
Christ’s work we shall be assisted and upheld by 
His Executive. This should give us the desirable 
stedfastness, or patience, which the saints pos¬ 
sessed. We shall never feel alone and helpless. 
We shall always feel secure as long as we are 
obedient. 

“ A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, 
and and a covert from the tempest, as streams of 
water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a 
weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not 
be closed, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. 
... But the noble deviseth noble things; and in noble 
things shall he continue.” “For I am come down 
from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of 
him that sent me.” 

It would seem from much that might be quoted 
that we are, as a fact, under the government 
of Christ, or we are not. If we are acting 
under His governmental authority, we know that 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


153 


we shall be under the especial care and guidance 
of His Executive; as are all those who, being filled 
with the Holy Spirit, do His bidding gladly, and 
are employed in His service of redeeming the 
children of the race from their miserable state of 
body, mind, and spirit. “Are they not all minis¬ 
tering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake 
of them that shall inherit salvation?” This 
should give us serious thought. It must mean 
that if we give up our souls to Christ’s keeping, 
and consecrate our services to His employment, we 
shall thus have the promised ministration of angels 
to guide, guard, and to assist us in our obedient 
endeavour. This belief is not borrowed from 
modem spiritism, but from the Lord Christ’s 
Testament as it is given to us. Some of us are as 
conscious of the ministry of Angels from personal 
experience as we are of the kindly consideration 
of our, as yet, human friends. 


“Ever so low, ever so gently, 

Whisper the angels in mine ear, 

Teaching me still, chiding me never— 

Heaven itself is brought more near!” 

If we are walking with earthly companions we 
try to understand what they are saying to us, but 
we walk day by day in the presence of these mes¬ 
sengers of Christ, and who shall say but at times 
in His Own company, and perhaps never turn our 
inner hearing towards them to catch the guiding 


154 


Which Temple Ye Are 


and cheering word. Oh, how kindly and stedfast 
these must be in their endeavour towards us, to 
bear our cold indifference thus! The patience of 
the saints is a beautiful quality for us to try to 
incorporate into our own consciousness, for we shall 
doubtless require its cultivation, even in the small 
tasks which we may be called upon to perform. 
We shall doubtless have much cold indifference 
shown towards us in our most trying tasks, some¬ 
times by those who should give us the widest 
sympathy, but who disappoint us most cruelly. 
We must learn to say with our Saviour, “Father, 
forgive them, they know not what they do.” 
“And one shall say unto him, What are these 
wounds between thine arms? Then he shall 
answer, Those with which I was wounded in the 
house of my friends.” The nominal Church has 
ever been busy wounding those who are in the 
true Church , those who are consecrated to Christ’s 
true service. And still they spare not. The 
modem method is less brutal but quite as effective 
in its hurting power. These we must not copy in 
our methods. We had better, for our work’s 
sake, and for our soul’s serenity, rather copy the 
Saviour of men, and His patient helpful assistants. 
When we recollect what some brave-spirited men 
and women have done under the direction of the 
Spirit, through prayer to and trust in God the 
Father, we must be ashamed of our reluctance to 
acquire these gifts. We could enumerate several 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


i55 


of recent years who openly claim to carry on their 
splendid work by faith in the efficacy of trustful 
prayer. Many souls of lesser experiences can 
testify to the obtaining of implicit direction when 
earnestly desired and required. “More things are 
wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” 
Our Lord said to His disciples, “ If two of you shall 
agree on earth as touching anything that they shall 
ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is 
in heaven. For where two or three are gathered 
together in my name, there am I in the midst of 
them.” John, who perhaps entered into the 
spirit of the Master’s teaching more truly than did 
any of the other Apostles, writes thus, “And this 
is the boldness which we have towards him, that, 
if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth 
us; and if we know that he heareth us whatsoever 
we ask, we know that we have the petitions which 
we have asked of him. ” But this was written by a 
disciple who was a doer as well as a believer , one 
who would obey though he knew that it might lead 
him into the valley of the shadow of death; one 
who was in such close touch with Jesus as to be, 
we may suppose, His dearest earthly friend. John 
took the ground that a true disciple’s desire was 
in harmony with his beloved Master, and with 
the intention of the Father; therefore he could 
come with boldness. If we are in harmony with 
the Father and His One Son, and desire and pray 
for that which they are intending to do for us, we 


156 


Which Temple Ye Are 


shall obtain our requirement. If this is true, we 
may well inquire, Then why petition if it is our 
destiny to do or have so-and-so without our asking? 
Since we are constantly urged to pray, to ask and 
receive, knock that it may be opened, we must 
regard this trustful and harmonious asking as a 
necessary obedience that shall ensure direction. 
It is an implicit command which we may not ignore . 
It is the commonest of everyday courtesy to acknow¬ 
ledge a friend's presence. If we are in the presence 
of one whom we think of as being a social superior 
we are all courtesy and attention. But the patient 
Son of the Blessed One may stand at the door and 
knock throughout the long years, and we heed 
Him not, nor invite Him in. He sends His blessed 
messengers to us, and we accept their aid, most 
of us unconsciously, and without a thankful 
heart, or inner word of appreciation to them. 
Some of us accept of these kindly gifts of strength 
and skill, and think that we have performed won¬ 
derful things by our own strength and cleverness, 
and that we are certainly great persons. Most of 
us, like those referred to in our text, are without 
understanding, and when God wants to use us, 
He puts on the bit and bridle, as one must to the 
horse and mule, and as we cannot see our driver, 
we think that we are wise and powerful to perform 
in our own might and wisdom. And we might be 
walking in the Christlike confidence of doing the 
will of the Father, knowing that He is instructing 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


i57 


and counselling us with His eye upon us, and that 
we are trusting in the help of Jehovah, and always 
encompassed by the loving-kindness of our Father 
who is in heaven! Oh, if we were not so dense, so 
deaf, so dumb, so blind! If we are in great straits 
many of us are ready enough to cry out in terror to 
God to help us, like the cowards that we are; but 
to recognize and acknowledge His constant pre¬ 
cious protecting and preserving presence, does not 
often come into our conscious minds. True, on 
a Sunday, some of us do glibly repeat all the beauti¬ 
ful and holy prayers that should be the life-blood 
of our souls, but which have become, through the 
constant saying of them, little more than a habit 
of the mouth. If we were only true to ourselves! 
If we only realized that, which after all is said, 
many of us do absolutely believe in, what a people 
we should become! 

If we lived as in the conscious, realized, actual 
presence of the Father, His One Perfected Son 
and those holy ones who are filled with the Spirit 
of God, what a redeeming strength we should be in 
the world, at this most trying time! A time when 
every system or school seems to be passing through 
the fires of purification for the coming Kingdom of 
Heaven! Perhaps not many of us would care to 
realize that we are in the constant presence of 
these august Guests. Human beings have realized 
it, and why not we? Enoch “walked with God,” 
it is said. We know that he also “talked with 


158 


Which Temple Ye Are 


God,” fragments of the conversation having been 
handed down to us. Abraham was called “The 
friend of God. ” We know that he also talked with 
God, as the Scriptures do testify. Moses talked 
with God, and received from Him his mission and 
The Law. Paul and John talked with the Christ 
long after He had become King of Heaven and 
earth, and when He was sitting on the right hand 
of God—or in His full authority. If we wish to be 
strong, stedfast, stable, wise, and invincible, as 
these great souls—though in a lesser vocation—we 
must unite ourselves to the government of this 
Kingly Christ. We must in all solemnity covenant 
with Him that we will give allegiance to Him and 
Him only. We must then ask guidance and 
strength from the Father in the name of His Son. 
We must attune our inner consciousness to catch 
the breathings of the Spirit of God. We must 
learn to ask and to expect this constant inspiration 
every moment of our lives. 

We have five natural senses. We also have a 
largely latent sixth. The sixth sense makes us 
aware of the mental forces and atmosphere by 
which we are environed, and with which we come 
in contact. But our seventh, and complete sense, 
is that which brings us into communion and unity 
with the spiritual government of Christ. If we 
attain to the revived use of this almost latent 
sense, then we shall ask and receive because we 
shall always ask aright. We shall not be mere 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


159 


servants of Christ and His working force, but we 
shall be friends . Jesus said to His Own, 

“Abide in me, and I in you. If ye abide in me, 
and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will 
and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father 
glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my 
disciples. ... Ye are my friends, if ye do the things 
which I command you. No longer do I call you 
servants; . . . for all things that I heard from 

my Father I have made known unto you. . . 

I have yet many things to say unto you but ye can¬ 
not bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of 
truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth; 
for he shall not speak from himself; but what things 
soever he shall hear, these shall he speak; and he 
shall declare unto you the things that are to come.” 

Again He entreats our courteous friendship, 
this time from out His throne on the right hand 
of God, 

“ Behold, I stand at the door and knock: If any man 
hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to 
him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He 
that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with 
me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat down 
with my Father in his throne.” 

We might well wonder why Christ Jesus was so 
severe in His condemnation of the speaking against 
the Holy Spirit, unless we pause to consider the 
office of this third person of that which we know as 


i6o Which Temple Ye Are 


the Triune Godhead. This consideration explains 
it fully. Jesus in His human person had been 
subjected to severe discipline and trial by His 
Father, in order that He might be perfected, or 
tested, by the things which He suffered, that we 
might have a high priest that could feel our 
infirmities and so be in a position to sympathize 
with us in our difficulties, and strengthen and 
support us in our weakness. He knew that it was 
the Holy Spirit Who had ministered to Him in 
His greatest trials. He also knew that all who 
would reach the spiritual condition that is essential 
to soul-life, must be assisted by this same Holy 
Spirit. Therefore, it was worse than folly, it was 
soul-suicide, to speak against (or blaspheme) this 
one official first aid of the mortal soul. Afterwards, 
He was to take on the full authority over this 
executive body, this Holy Spirit endowed Executive, 
but they would always be, and now are, the direct 
personal aid of the mortal soul who is striving 
after this wondrous privilege, immortality. And 
this sin is quite as heinous and suicidal to-day 
as it was when Jesus pronounced it as so absolutely 
unforgivable. Perhaps it is more so. We may 
read His written word, but He promised to send 
the Spirit of Truth to tell us more fully about 
things which these contemporaries could not bear 
to know. Paul spoke of things that he had learned, 
that these peoples were not able to bear to know. 
What are these things which the Spirit of Truth 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


161 


was to tell later on to a people that were better 
prepared for it ? Perhaps it was some things which 
suited our age but not theirs. Why do we not try 
to obtain this fulness of Truth? Do we not desire 
it? Do we not believe that what Jesus promised 
us is a verity, or have we overlooked the fact that 
He did promise it? What is the trouble with us? 
Do we really desire direction with God’s eye upon 
us? Or do we prefer to go blundering along with 
our eyes fixed on nowhere, our feet wandering 
about as though separated from our brain, grasping 
at all sorts of debris and phantoms, and so prove 
to the watching host that we are still mortal, and 
still wish to remain mortal, and so thus slowly 
pass away into chaotic dissolution? Or does that 
Something within us that feels out after life eternal 
for the soul compel us to look into this matter and 
try to learn just what our privileges and possibili¬ 
ties are? There is, after repentance, no other 
more important point in our life of faith than 
guidance. So we find that Jesus emphasized it 
next to repentance. He constantly taught repent¬ 
ance, and said that there had been none greater 
than he who taught the new doctrine of, “Repent 
ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” So 
repentance comes first, as we have endeavoured to 
explain, then come forgiveness, cleansing, and 
robing in the garments of good desires and inten¬ 
tions in our works, etc. Then we shall strive to 
acquire intellectual and spiritual food to give us 


ii 


162 Which Temple Ye Are 

enough vigour to desire to do that which is just 
and right. But, if after arriving at this status of 
spiritual life, by the aid of the Spirit, we then refuse 
to ask God for this further direction and instruction, 
we shall still fail in our effort, for it will be poor and 
abortive. We shall not bear finely developed fruit, 
but only that which falls to the ground. All effort 
to be fruitful in good works for the children of men, 
must be under the direct control of Christ and 
His Executive. Therefore, if we refuse, or worse, 
speak against this body, how shall we be helped? 
This is God’s gift of help to us, we require it, we 
cannot live for long without it. God told us once 
that the Spirit should not always abide with us, 
or strive with us. We are warned not to quench 
the Spirit, not to despise prophesyings, but to 
prove all things, hold fast that which is good. 

Paul here warns the Thessalonians against 
repelling the Spirit, and at the same time warns 
them to be careful not to be misled by false 
teachings—perhaps teaching given through super¬ 
natural agencies, or agencies claiming to be such. 
John also warns us against this danger. The 
warning is as timely to-day as it was then, perhaps 
more so, since the wave of belief in the possibility 
of communion with spirit intelligences has of late 
years swept over us like an east wind. It is only 
fair, and even necessary, to refer here to this 
movement with as little prejudice as we may. 
Personally, we owe too much to our investigation 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


163 

of it to speak of it in a wholly disparaging tone. 
John is quite explicit in his instructions as to the 
mode of distinguishing between the agencies of 
Satan and that of the Holy Spirit, the Executive 
of the Lord Christ, thus: 

“ Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the 
spirits, whether they are of God; because many false 
prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye 
the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit 
that confesseth not (or annulleth) Jesus is not of God; 
and this is the spirit of the anti-Christ, whereof ye 
have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world 
already.” 

You will find that, with a few exceptions, the 
teaching that emanates from popular Spiritism, is, 
to use the greatest reserve in describing it, Unitarian 
in character, no matter how generally moral in 
tone. Many of those who have had plenty of 
experience in making sure for themselves that the 
possibility of communion is a verity are amongst 
our highest thinkers. This we all know without 
mentioning them by name. But these do not 
study it as a religion, but as a possible scientific 
discovery, comparing well with telepathy and 
kindred discoveries. The day has passed when we 
may sneer at the possibilities of being able to 
interchange communication with intelligences 
which are not of our density of physical matter. It 


Which Temple Ye Are 


164 

never was scriptural to deny it. We should all be 
grateful to those who have tried to gain experience 
in this matter when it is done either in a religious 
or a scientific spirit. Religious, in trying to save 
the people from error, and scientific as trying to 
bring to the subject the best human light that 
can be focussed upon it. Where the error has 
lain with our Christian believers of all persuasions, 
is in that they have not used the test as given by 
John. 

In looking into this and many other modem 
movements, one may see a peculiar and exceedingly 
significant method which, it seems to us, the Lord 
Christ is using. We must grant that His Kingdom 
is being ushered in. We shall be obliged to grant 
also that Satan’s kingdom of this world is in the 
last stages, and is surely leaving his grasp. The 
spirit of anti-Christ was to be, and who would deny 
that it has been in the world to this day, and now 
is still in it? It seems to be the privilege of this 
opposing spirit, this anti-Christ, to try and over¬ 
throw Christ’s Kingdom by various subtle methods. 
We may easily observe that each of these great 
movements has been, and is, denying to Christ 
Jesus His present living authority, as an actual, 
personal King over Heaven and earth. And yet, 
each cultus is heavy with at least one truth, which 
is in an inconceivable degree ignored in our popular 
Christianity. So we see it to be the will of God 
that these (maybe, unclean frogs, of the vision 


“I will Counsel Thee" 


!65 


of St. John) are in the end to be directed to the 
office of reminding Christianity into what puni¬ 
ness and inadequacy she has fallen. The early 
Church healed the sick; we do not. Christian 
Science denies the present authority of Christ as 
King; but she most certainly heals many of the 
diseases to which we are heirs. This we cannot 
deny if we wish to. The early Church had all 
things in common, and none were in need. And 
they were a prosperous people. Socialism designs 
to have this carried out in our midst; but a 
strongly active Socialist is seldom, if ever, found to 
be one willing to give Christ Jesus His absolute 
position without veering dangerously near to 
Unitarianism. 

In reading the New Testament, who shall doubt, 
if he read intelligently, that these so-called spiritual 
gifts belonged as part and parcel to the Church of 
Christ, then and always? Who shall deny that 
there is a renewing of these gifts prophesied by it? 
There was great activity between the primitive 
Church of Christ and His Executive. From the 
beginning of Matthew’s account until we reach the 
end of the Revelation of John, we are before con¬ 
stant evidence of this close, conscious relationship 
between the risen Christ and His Church. And it 
is accentuated by His promise, “ And lo, I am with 
you all the days (always), even unto the end of the 
world (or the consummation of the age). ” So the 
communion of the Lord Christ and His ministering 


166 Which Temple Ye Are 

spirits, whom He sends for our assistance, is no 
fairy tale; but it is our privilege and right to have 
them, and we do have them; but we are wofully 
guilty of ignoring their constant and conscious 
direction in our efforts. This is to our grave hurt. 
When Jesus sent forth the twelve disciples to 
preach the Kingdom, He gave them power to cast 
out demons, to heal all manner of disease; and they 
were not allowed to provide for their sustenance in 
advance, but were to accept of hospitality from 
those to whom they ministered. If they were 
brought before councils, etc., they were not to con¬ 
sider what they had better say. They were told, 
“ Be not anxious how or what ye shall speak . . . 
for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your 
Father that speaketh in you.” 

If we are to know of His will concerning us how 
shall we learn it if not by what He taught to His 
disciples? If we were intended to have something 
quite different, what was it to be, and where is it 
so stated in His Testament? If this and other 
commands and assurances are for us, why do we 
fling them from us as though they were deadly 
injury or peril? Why do we not wish our dormant 
senses to become active? Why do we piously 
repeat, “I believe in the communion of saints,” 
and refuse to realize that this is an actual possi¬ 
bility? I do not deny that many earnest souls ask 
imploringly of God to guide them in their general 
life, and in particular duties and undertakings. 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


167 


I know that many, perhaps all, who feel themselves 
to be Christians, do this. Some, whom we deem to 
be far from being Christians, cry to their God for 
help in that which they feel to be their duty to 
perform. It is said that Madame Roland was 
sometimes called an atheist, but she had one prayer 
to which she claimed always to confine herself, viz.: 
“0 Thou Who hast placed me on the earth, enable 
me to fulfil my destination in the manner most 
conformable to the Divine Will, and most beneficial 
to my fellow creatures. ” Madame Roland did not 
hear the “voices,” as did Joan of Arc, but who 
shall say that her prayer was not answered? Per¬ 
haps all who pray ask for direction, but do all 
expect to receive, and are all willing to act upon 
the advice received, or felt to be received? 

As the theme of this chapter is direction from God , 
I felt called upon to dwell at considerable length 
on this question of communion with spirit intelli¬ 
gences, the more so since we know that so very 
many persons are to-day asking direction of those 
whom they term to be their “guides.” This is 
more often done than would be imagined possible 
by those who cannot be brought to believe that it 
is other than fanciful nonsense. Those who fear 
that it may be true are, many of them, of opinion 
that it is, without exception, from Satan’s agents. 
On either class I do most emphatically and be¬ 
seechingly urge the bringing of into absolutely 
constant use the trial test of the Apostle John which 


168 


Which Temple Ye Are 


has been previously quoted, “ Beloved, believe 
not,” etc. Right at this point is the danger. 
None of us fear ministering spirits of God, unless 
we are secretly sinning. We all of us do fear 
mocking demons, who tempt and torment us. So 
we had better arm ourselves with this unfailing 
defence. But to refuse the conscious companion¬ 
ship of the Angels of God is inconceivable folly in 
a soul who is looking ever upward towards our 
eternal home, the home of the Blessed One and 
this company of ministering spirits. The time 
of our ignorance God will overlook, but after we 
know and are brought into remembrance of our 
Lord’s warning by the Spirit of Truth, how shall 
we with impunity continue to ignore our Lord’s 
messengers to us? Any human soul who has had 
the wonderful experience of being brought into 
the consciousness of having the constant, and shall 
we term it, palpable, presence of these messengers, 
ministering spirits, throughout the intricacies of 
a life which seems partly failure, partly success, is 
so filled with an inexpressible gratitude and 
tenderness towards them as spiritual entities, 
that it becomes no longer possible to ignore them. 
But, if they be truly Christ’s messengers, they 
will not put their personalities into prominence. 
They will refuse to guide or give us instruction if we 
ask them to do so. They will compel us to ask God , 
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ , for what we 
want; and not themselves , in their own persons. 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


169 

And we see it to be scripturally wrong to ask those 
spirits who are around us for information on any 
subject, unless we first ask permission of God in 
Christ Jesus’ name. He in no place in the Word 
invites or commands us to ask of these messengers, 
or gives us promises that we shall thus receive. 
Into this dangerous abyss many well meaning 
people have fallen of late years. It is not that 
we may not love impersonally those who minister 
to us so tenderly, but that we must recognize that 
all good and perfect gifts come from God alone, 
and we must ask all of Him in Christ’s name. 
Christ will send whom He will, and answer us in 
the way that is best for us. 

One day I read this little thought in a journalistic 
article, viz.: That to see a danger clearly one’s self 
was to receive a call to reveal that danger to others. 
I feel this to be an urgent truth. The small boy 
saw the tiny leak in the great dyke which held back 
the relentless sea from flowing over a town in Hol¬ 
land. He stayed at the danger point until a greater 
than he undertook the task and the mending 
of the leak. It was the boy’s call from the God of 
Lives to stop the leak. And in this same spirit of 
obedience to the God of Lives do we earnestly 
desire to call attention to this twofold danger 
that to-day menaces the spiritual lives of our 
people. 

If any of us have this aroused sense of being 
conscious of entities who are of a rarer quality, less 


170 


Which Temple Ye Are 


dense, in body than we are; if we find that these 
are in the slightest degree endeavouring to under¬ 
mine in us the purity and absoluteness of our faith 
in a consecrated, crucified, risen, and now reigning 
Jesus the Christ, Who saves us from our sins and 
death; then we should know that such are Satan's 
agents, and are not of Christ’s Holy Executive. 
We are told that if the blind lead the blind both 
shall fall into a pit. The difference in the guidance 
between these two forces is precisely the difference 
which lies between Pentecost and Inferno. It is 
our free will right to take our places in either com¬ 
pany, as we choose, but not in both. “Ye cannot 
serve two masters. ” 

And so we repeat the Apostle’s warning, 
“ Quench not the Spirit. ” It is through the Spirit 
of Truth, the Comforter, that we obtain counsel 
and instruction. This is, as I see it, the most 
emphatically taught of all the essential doctrines 
in the Old or New Testament. Its lucidity is 
evidence of its essential importance. Christ’s 
uncompromising denouncement of those who spoke 
against it, seals it beyond doubt. 

We need be in no doubt but that the school of 
the prophets had some such test whilst in training; 
as the difference between the witches and prophets 
was as marked as is the difference between a Christ¬ 
ian prophet and a fortune-teller, to-day. Oh, for 
a renewal of the school of the prophets in our 
midst! God has not forgotten His promises. 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


171 

Christ His Son has not withdrawn His blessed 
assurances to us. There has always been this gift 
awaiting our acceptance. In the days of Eli, who 
had wicked sons, “The Word of Jehovah was rare 
(or precious) in those days; there was no frequent 
(or widely spread) vision.” The wise man tells 
us that “Where there is no vision, the people cast 
off restraint.” If we have no vision to-day, why 
have we not? If some of us have a measure of it, 
why do we not confess it, that our experiences may 
be helpful? Were the heathen “Wise-ones” 
ashamed to consult their oracles? Are we sure 
that the usefulness of these famous oracles of 
ancient lore was an absolute fiction, born of a 
fanciful imagination? We cannot be sure of 
anything regarding these; but we do know that 
Jehovah told Moses to put into Aaron’s breastplate 
of Judgment the Urim and the Thummim, that 
they might be upon Aaron’s heart when he went 
in before Jehovah; and on his forehead were 
written the words, Holy to Jehovah. We learn 
that these two words mean Light and Perfection. 
We are not sure that these objects actually re¬ 
sponded to questions, but we do know that God 
answered Aaron’s questions in some way when he 
wore them. Was it a symbol, as all other things 
were in Jewish ritual? Does it mean that if we 
go into the presence of God—in retreat if you will 
—with the Light of the Spirit of Truth and the 
Perfection of Obedience in our hearts as chiefest 


172 


Which Temple Ye Are 


qualities in our breastplate, and if we be also 
Holy to Jehovah; that the Lord Christ, God’s 
Voice, will speak to us on important issues, as did 
Jehovah God to these children of old? These were 
the forerunners of the school of the prophets. 
Shall we yet have a Christ-ruled School of the 
Prophets? Why should we not learn to discrimin¬ 
ate between the tempter of men’s souls, and the 
Saviour of them? Have we a clear duty along 
this theme? 

If we ask aright we receive. If we knock 
aright it shall be opened to us. If we are in har¬ 
mony with the Heavenly Kingdom, we shall seek 
direction, and shall receive it in some way that is 
best for us, or is easiest for us to follow. For 
Christ has asked us to walk with Him, and take 
His yoke upon us. If we are obedient to His 
instructions and counsels, we shall be His friends, 
and not merely His servants. This will give us 
assurance that we shall not, at least ultimately, 
fail in any heaven-bom undertaking. We shall 
be “stedfast, immovable, always abounding in 
the works of the Lord, forasmuch as we know 
that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. ” Alas, 
that we still cry with the troubled spirit of Job, 

“O that I knew where I might find Him! 

That I might come even to His seat! 

I would set my cause in order before Him 
And fill my mouth with arguments. 

I would know the words which He would answer me. 


“I will Counsel Thee” 


i73 


Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; 

And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; 

On the left hand, when He doeth work, but I cannot behold 
Him; 

He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him.” 

Job xxiii. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9. 


CHAPTER IX 


“the urim and the thummim” 

“And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim 
and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when 
he goeth in before Jehovah; and Aaron shall hear the judgment of 
the children of Israel upon his heart before Jehovah continually.” 


Exodus xxviii. 30. 


“If any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God; 
if any man ministereth, ministering as of the strength which God 
supplieth.” 1 Peter iv. 11. 

“Wherefore 0 king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision; but declared both to them of Damascus first, 
and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judaea, and 
also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, 
doing works worthy of repentance. ” Acts xxvi. 19, 20. 



AN we put on our breastplate a motto that is 


richer in significance than the Urim and the 
Thummim, the Light and Perfection, when we 
enter into the holy place, and stand awaiting the 
instructions and counsels of the One who was the 
Light of the World, who was the One Perfected 
Author of our Salvation? After repentance, and 
preparation for service is attained, can we find 
any further essentials that are not covered by the 
motto, Light and Perfection? Light, to know just 


174 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 175 


what we should do in our efforts to restore the 
fallen race—ourselves included—and the Perfec¬ 
tion of mind and conduct, which is the result of 
obedience to that Light. Light without obedience 
is worse than wasted. To know and not to do, 
is open wickedness. To do active service without 
the enlightenment of wise counsel, is almost 
useless effort. In our motto, Light comes first, 
Perfection next in position; just as obedience 
must necessarily follow, and not precede com¬ 
mand. 

And so we have been urging the study of all 
history of mankind, but especially the Scriptures, 
that we may have some light on our history as a 
race of mortal souls. In studying our Scriptures 
thus, we find that we as souls may under certain 
conditions become immortal . We are taught these 
conditions in the history and teachings of our 
Lord Christ. We know that He came on earth, 
lived, died, rose again, ascended to the right hand 
of the Father, in order that we might be brought 
into union with the Father, through Himself, and 
that thus we may become immortal. God had long 
before said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” 
His Son came claiming to save the people from this 
habit of sinning which has held us as a race in the 
bonds of mortality. He brought us the Light and 
has promised that we shall yet attain unto Per¬ 
fection, even as He has; but it is by the path of 
absolute obedience to the Light. This is our key 


176 


Which Temple Ye Are 


to the Kingdom. If any man tries to attain 
eternal life by other means he must fail. 

We read much of salvation in the New Testa¬ 
ment. Do we always consider that the meaning of 
the word salvation is not only to be saved , but to be 
saved because we are sound , that is, not in a decay¬ 
ing condition? We are taught by our Lord that 
the way to keep in this sound condition is to bear 
one another’s burdens, and to love one another. 
This is the scriptural process by which we become 
whole enough to continue to live. This obedient 
and wise service is our natural mode of soul 
exercise which shall eventually give us Christlike 
powers and Christlike soundness which shall be 
our salvation from death. Then shall we joy¬ 
fully cry, “O death, where is thy victory? O 
death, where is thy sting?” We shall know that 
“the sting of death is sin,” and that thanks be to 
our Lord Jesus Christ we have victory over death. 

We believe in Christ; so do the demons. It is 
by our obedience in conduct, and allegiance in 
spirit, that we are distinguished from these un¬ 
happy intelligences who “shudder,” in the know¬ 
ledge that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Christ 
of God. So we must show forth our faith by our 
loving service in the redemptive work of this Christ, 
to Whom we owe our loving loyalty. If we do not, 
He will not acknowledge us before His Father. 
How could He? As, if we are not obedient, then 
we are certainly disobedient. If we do not know 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 177 


what we ought to do, we should read the descrip¬ 
tions of the Kingdom of Heaven, to which we are 
heirs, and see how it compares with what we allow 
to exist in our midst to-day. We may receive 
a little light in this way; and after becoming quite 
obedient to this light regarding bearing one 
another’s burdens, and doing to others as we would 
that they should do to us, we shall no doubt have 
our illumination increased. Light does not guide 
the steps of a blind man. If we are blind to our 
individual responsibilities, the illuminative effect 
of what we know is wasted on us. A little light, 
and a perfect obedience, is better than much light, 
and a mean-spirited, grudging, and disloyal dis¬ 
obedience. Obedience is the highway to per¬ 
fection. So we shall have on our breastplate both 
words, “ The Light and the Perfection. ” Of what 
use is it to ask for direction if we have not obeyed 
the instructions that we have already received? 
Thus, we are not in a state, except at crucial 
moments, to secure guarantee of an answer to our 
petition for guidance, because we are so unkind 
towards one another. If we had done all that we 
possibly could for each other, we could go before 
Jehovah and ask, with faith that we should receive. 
This is where the trouble lies. Christ left us a 
code of such chaste ethics; and we still live in such 
a state, that we may well not wish to realize that 
He and His angels surround us! But, with joy 
we do see very many strongly courageous souls 


12 


i 7 8 


Which Temple Ye Are 


making desperate efforts to remedy some of the 
evils of the day. All cannot be effected at once, 
but it must be done swiftly. Each one of us can 
perform some small office for the general good, and 
as our obedience strengthens, so shall we have 
light to walk. So, while we study the ethics of 
Christ’s Kingdom, and covenant our allegiance 
to His commands, and listen to His voice only, 
we shall begin to look about us, and into our 
individual and daily lives, and we shall at first try 
loyally to do that which is just and right, in small 
ways and in seeming trifles. The habit of this 
holy effort will grow upon us, and we shall be 
seeking for special direction in our daily walk of 
life. This, in itself, we shall find to be a most 
searching and disciplining exercise. Just think 
for a moment, if this exercise were to become uni¬ 
versal for a few years in our Empire, what it would 
mean. But alas, while we are looking, by a long 
stretch of the imagination , into such a state as this 
office performed would bring us to in a few years, 
the picture is left in distressingly distinct relief 
of how we are situated at present in reality . 
Recent events have revealed a vista of oppression, 
misery and dishonesty, that should spur on every 
sincere soul to do, at the very least, the duty 
that lies nearest him. Even this small-sounding 
beginning would indeed be vast in its issues. We 
know that in the Holy City there will be no hunger, 
or sickness, or pain, or lies. A child knows when 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 179 


another child is hungry, or ill, or suffering pain. 
A child if he be a normal, innocent, unspoilt child, 
will always sympathize with a sufferer, and give a 
hungry little one a piece of his food. Alas, we are 
not so good as these little ones, of whom we have 
so much to learn. Alas, that the child should have 
to unlearn so much of its divine instinctive know¬ 
ledge. Oh, that we could leave unspoiled this 
God-given instinct in these simple minds! But, 
coming into contact with the selfishness and dis¬ 
honesty of the maturer general world, the child 
soon becomes hardened and blinded to pain, and 
becomes filled with the depraved and dishonest 
idea that he must get and hold all that he can for 
his own use. This instinct is accountable for the 
crafty dishonesty that utterly permeates the 
general commerce of our Christian (?) nations. 
And what a weary business it is to unlearn it in 
our still maturer years, after long seasons of this 
hardening process! Alas, some of us do not un¬ 
learn it in this life at all! We go into, maybe, an 
honoured grave, with this suicidal instinct wrapped 
closely about us as a winding sheet of the soul— 
which indeed it is—but when we arrive in that 
other world, that next state of being, with whom 
shall we associate? To whom shall we find our 
instincts and habits allied? 

I think that almost all thinking persons of fair 
mind will agree with me that given the right mode 
of life, conditions, environments, etc., all souls 


i8o Which Temple Ye Are 

desire purity of life, and instinctively feel that it is 
the only way in which one may arrive at the much 
to be desired status, Immortality. Why then 
do we not walk therein? We have the reason 
stated plainly enough in the list of debarring 
qualities spoken of in Revelation. But first, 
we must identify the Kingdom of God with the 
Home of Immortal Souls. Christ taught us that 
the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. We can¬ 
not bring into this heaven within many of the 
qualities of which we are now in possession. The 
first named one seems to be the chief drawback 
to the attainment of this heaven within. We are 
all too fearful of everything that is in our way, and 
we allow our want of courage to stand in the way 
of our obedience. So we become hearers and not 
doers. Granted that a soul perceives a line of 
service most clearly, and knows that he has been 
given the talent required to perform it, why does 
he not proceed to do it? So Christ, the Voice 
of God to us, knowing our peculiar weaknesses, 
puts fearfulness first in the list of hindrances. It 
looks harmless enough, but is in reality a most 
deadly hindrance. Also, remembering our weak¬ 
nesses, He put lies at the end of the list. Why? 
Because each of the debarring sins is held up in 
its false position by lies. When all of the sin¬ 
ful tendencies are eliminated from us, we shall 
cease to have reason for falsities. Nowhere 
do lies take a more active form than in this 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 181 


first named soul crime fearfulness. Satan pre¬ 
sents to us all sorts of false terrors to thwart our 
aspirations towards the higher life. He whispers 
into our spirits all sorts of doubts and fears. He 
stations all sorts of phantom giants in our paths, 
giants that the slightest breath of prayer will 
dispel, if we live by faith in God instead of in our¬ 
selves. Given a people who are afraid to exercise 
their own free will, and who are weak and ignorant 
or prejudiced enough to believe in error rather than 
truth, and the battle is to the Evil One, and the 
battle has been gained by lies. Thank God that 
much of our fearsomeness is passing away, and we 
know that lies shall not always be able to pose as 
white-winged truths. 

We see quite plainly that in this battle for life, 
which is now raging in our State, as well as in many 
others, there is absolute need of wise leaders and 
equally wise followers. They must be wise as 
leaders, we must be equally wise in our following. 
Every leader towards the Holy City, whether he 
be preacher or statesman, is utterly helpless with¬ 
out appreciative co-workers. His service is mea¬ 
sured by those served; his success in this is limited 
by the strength of his co-workers. Christ were no 
Christ without the souls whom He must redeem 
from sin. Christ could have no Church, no Bride, 
if He have no co-workers. Therefore all spheres 
of life are of gravest importance. No soul, how¬ 
ever humble, is free from the responsibility of the 


182 


Which Temple Ye Are 


purity of the State. One rises up and insists that 
asylums and prisons be not houses of torture. 
Another rises and declares that slavery is a dia¬ 
bolical injustice between man and man. Others 
have spent their lives in trying to discover remedies 
for some of our dreadful diseases. One rises to 
formulate a system by which we can send words of 
friendship, consolation, or mere business, to those 
far from us, with safety and with little cost. Others 
have risen, each in his place, to give to the world 
the steamship, the railway, the telegraph, the 
telephone and the wireless telegraph. What next 
shall come, our Creator, Christ, and perhaps the 
angels only know. When we turn our hopeful eye 
on the possibilities along the helpful scientific line, 
we are not only interested but awed. Who a short 
time ago would have dreamed of the triumphs of 
electricity? Who shall say that it shall never be 
superseded by, or augmented with, a still subtler 
element than this? Men are now struggling to 
conquer the secrets of the power of the air. We 
must wait to see with what result. We must thank 
God for these greater gifts, and certainly honour 
the noble spirits who have so fearlessly followed 
their call, and used their talents, one or many. But 
their gifts were from God, the giver of all things. 

“All that’s good, and great, and true, 

All that is, and is to be, 

Be it old, or be it new, 

Comes, O Father, comes from Thee. ” 

G. Thring. 


“The Urim and the Thummin” 183 


In the realm of religious and ethical service, the 
same may be said. Any spiritual truth that a soul 
brings to the notice of his receptive fellow man is a 
gift of God. We must honour the man, only as he 
is stedfastly working in the light of God towards 
the perfection of the people. These, more than 
any, need to have on their own breastplate Light 
and Perfection; Light to teach the spirit of man in 
wisdom, and that obedience to that light which shall 
result in the ultimate perfection of himself and the 
whole race. He who is obedient to his light may 
approach Jehovah and ask for direction, because he 
wears the Urim and Thummim ever upon his heart. 

Should ordinary everyday persons receive gifts 
from God, or are they for the favoured few? It is 
quite evident that great gifts come to but few. Are 
we sure that only the few can attain? One thing 
is clear, and fortunately it is the one essential thing 
for us to know; God has promised His counsel 
and guidance to all who intelligently obey Him. 
If Christ’s promises were made to all disciples, 
then we must be sure that we are really disciples; 
and thus we shall be heir to the promises. Christ’s 
promises are to the common people, to the “great 
multitude,” to-day even as then. “Come unto 
me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and 
learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my 
yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 


184 


Which Temple Ye Are 


Shall we be given counsel in little things? First 
we ask, are there any little things? Christ said 
that the Father works, therefore He works. We 
may obtain some light on this question, by examin¬ 
ing as well as we are able God’s works. When we 
look into the heavens and behold His greatness in 
the inconceivable vastness of the starry firmament, 
and know that these work with such astounding 
precision that half-blind, and childishly ignorant 
men—though they be our intellectual giants— 
can calculate the orbits and tell us years in advance 
just which planet will be here and which will be 
there at such a date; we feel that we cannot serve 
with God as co-workers there, but only as insigni¬ 
ficant, half-blind observers of a tiny point of His 
unthinkable universe. When these same men tell 
us of the minute and precise intricacies of His—to 
them—most infinitesimally atomic creations, and 
their astonishingly intricate workings, we feel that 
we cannot serve God there as co-workers. We 
cannot even conceive of His work. Where shall 
we “common people,” we the “great multitude” 
assist as co-workers with Him? For work we must, 
or we shall never be Temples of God. Perhaps as 
we are common people we had better try, by His 
help, to co-operate with Him in the things which 
we can the most easily understand, and which we 
know to be within our capability to accomplish. 
This we can do. Blest with a constitution where¬ 
in the voice of the people, sanctioned by the 


“The Urim and the Thummin” 185 


sovereign, is the only law, and that sovereign a 
model of humane and kingly qualities, we are indeed 
a people to be envied. Still, we do greatly err in 
many ways. But it rests with ourselves whether 
we retain these very many abominations of dark¬ 
ness, or whether we expose and destroy them as 
swiftly as possible. We see the cloud arising, we 
feel that we have the assurance of a speedy refresh¬ 
ing rain, in which the poor earth shall greatly 
rejoice. The experiences of Elijah are very edifying 
reading when we feel helpless and weak-kneed. 
Our fearfulness makes us so very helpless and weak- 
kneed, that when we attempt to walk before God 
we do not walk like a sturdy young child, a growing 
Son of God, but we fall about like a degenerate 
and underfed slum child, whose body is never well 
enough nourished to allow him to stand in that 
erectness, that is peculiar alone to healthy, happy 
childhood. A child does not fear naturally; he 
has to be taught that fire burns him. He does not 
fear that you are not telling the truth to him; he 
has to be taught that also. He is obedient until 
you teach him that your commands are not always 
wise or just. We, being so fearful, go limping 
about our work, whether it be seemingly small or 
great. Alas that we choose to ignore direction 
and aid, in our own apparently small duties! 

There is actually occasion for an earnest and 
powerful Elijah to-day in our land, to cry as did he 
in days of old, “How long go ye limping between 


186 Which Temple Ye Are 

the two sides? If Jehovah be God, follow Him; 
but if Baal, then follow him. ” Then each was to 
call upon his own God. “And all the people 
answered and said, it is well spoken.” And the 
followers of Baal cried long and pitifully, and 
leaped, or limped, about the altar, and cut them¬ 
selves with knives, in their anxiety to be proven 
right. Elijah, in sarcasm, urges them to make 
more noise as perchance Baal is asleep, or needs to 
be called back from some journey. But all effort 
proved to be futile. Baal had failed them. And 
now it was the evening. So Elijah cried to his 
God, “Hear me, O Jehovah, hear me, that this 
people may know that thou, Jehovah, art God, 
and that thou hast turned their heart back again. ” 
Then the fire came down and consumed the offer¬ 
ing. And the people said, “Jehovah, He is God.” 
It was after this that the much needed rain fell. If 
we believe in Israel’s God, why do we go limping 
noisily about the altar of Baal? It is this miserable 
indecision that is the undoing of our endeavour. 
We face both ways—or try to. We are told that 
Baal means Lord, not so much however in the 
sense of Ruler, as of Master, Owner, Possessor. 
This god seems to have borrowed local colouring 
from the various peoples that worshipped at his 
shrine. But at all times he was a god who held his 
minions in a tight grasp. Is there not a lesson in 
this for us to-day ? The Messiah came to depraved 
Israel many centuries later, and told them—a 


“The Urim and the Thummin” 187 


different thing?—no, it was still the same warning. 
“Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” I wonder 
what local colouring our beloved Empire is giving 
Baal to-day—for is he not still the god of idolatrous 
Israel? And we are idolatrous; who would think 
of denying it? Are we Holy to Jehovah? Do we 
worship in spirit and in truth the one true God 
and Him only? Do we? If we hold the vain 
imagination in our minds that we do indeed wor¬ 
ship Israel’s real God in spirit and in truth, per¬ 
haps we had better read up some of the recently 
published works on economics, social systems, etc. 
This exercise may relieve us of some of our false 
sense of righteous security. It is not within my 
province to draw attention to particular grievances, 
but to draw attention to the responsibility of each 
citizen, be he man, woman or child, in regard to 
these grievances. A small child, if he only 
realize it, can be a small water drop of this benign 
and refreshing rain that is so surely portended for 
our near future. A little child, with a little light, 
and a loving obedience to that light, can make the 
world a little better: 

“Little drops of water, little grains of sand, 

Little acts of kindness, little words of love, 

Make this world an Eden, like the Heaven above. ” 


Many of us were taught to say as our first lisping 
prayer to the Father: 


Which Temple Ye Are 


188 


“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, 

Look upon a little child, 

Pity my simplicity. 

Suffer me to come to Thee. 

Fain I would be as Thou art; 

Give me Thy obedient heart. 

Thou art pitiful and kind, 

Let me have Thy loving mind. ” 

If the little children can do little acts of kindness, 
men and women of maturer years, and wider 
experience, should be able to do vastly wider- 
reaching service for the people. This we see 
many, many, of them doing. But have we as sepa¬ 
rate persons of a mass of citizens each and every 
one become determined to follow the teaching of 
Israel’s Son, and do we listen to His voice only? 
Why, we seem to be too sleepy to hear any voice 
but the immediate call for food and clothing. Why 
is it that we do still go limping about the altar 
of Baal? Do we believe that he can save us? 

We are so inert. I believe that all sociologists 
agree that the indifferent, unseeing, unfeeling inert¬ 
ness of the mass of our comfortable “middle-class” 
people is the most serious obstacle to progressive 
reform. There is a hue and cry against the rich 
and tryannical portion of our people to-day that is 
intense in strength, and we hope may prove to be 
invincible in its correcting qualities. This is neces¬ 
sary enough, since our heavenly Father has told us 
long ago by His prophets that these should suffer 
loss. But this overpowering, palsying inertia of 


“The Urim and the Thummin” 189 


the “common people,” “the great multitude,” 
is much the greater foe to our restoration. It is 
here that the wise sociologist makes his attack, and 
necessarily so. Socialists, mostly, make their 
attack on the rich and powerful only, hence their 
inability to bring about many of the reforms which 
they so much desire. Still, these are wise enough 
to also strive to stir up that potent factor of our 
people, the electorate. I feel that it is not malign¬ 
ing this strong movement when I accuse them of 
working more in the spirit of hate and anger 
towards the oppressive idle rich than they do in 
love and kindness towards the very miserable 
poor. If they do in time—and they shall—turn 
their efforts into the service of the loving Saviour 
of men, they must change this attitude. Christ 
Jesus is not a hater of any man, but only of the 
evil sinning in man. Christ does not use His 
powers of conviction of truth to assist the com¬ 
fortable “middle class” (all between richest and 
poorest) to ignore the poorest and curse the richest. 
He is sending the Spirit of Truth to this large class 
to get them into a state of wakefulness to the fact 
that they must remove the crimes of the richest, 
and must also remove the awful squalor of the 
poorest. 

Sometimes I seem to see a vision of the “com¬ 
mon people” as an exodus from the old Mother¬ 
land. I see all that best and most virile portion of 
this great mass, quietly rising up, one by one, and 


190 


Which Temple Ye Are 


“as the Arab folds his tent and silently steals 
away, ” so do I see in this vision a stream, a never 
ending stream, silently stealing away to our waiting, 
happier, more generously measured great tracts of 
home-making areas—a stream that shall yet be, 
and now is, the saving of our beloved Empire. I 
see the seat of our Imperial Government removed 
to a newer, vaster field of federal activity. I see 
the British Isles carefully guarded by a loyal and 
loving family, as an aged parent who has passed 
into senile decay. I see her wasting population 
gradually ebb out until only these few feudal lords 
and their retainers remain. I see England as she 
is to-day, with all her splendid possibilities, having 
passed away, and existing only in vague old memo¬ 
ries and traditions, as the remnants of a passing 
dream. 

I see the hand of God even in the hardening of 
Pharaoh’s heart. The voice of the great virgin 
lands crying for more children for their vast areas, 
is becoming more and more articulate and beseech¬ 
ing to the people on these narrowly limited isles. 
“ God’s in His heaven, All’s right with the world. ” 
And true it is that, 

“God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform, 

He plants His footsteps in the sea, 

And rides upon the storm. ” 

Love of country is rich in a man’s heart, who has 
been born in this motherland , a love that is trans- 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 191 


mitted unto the sons and daughters, and unto the 
generations following. It is one of our rightful 
heritages. It has taken many a hard circumstance 
to push our over-population off into a promised 
land, a vaster empire. When we read of how this 
has been effected, and is still being effected, it is 
difficult to keep our minds and hearts free from 
angry hate towards these so tyrannical oppressors. 
But, we must intensely pity the oppressor at all 
times, if we are to have the Light and Perfection 
on our breastplate, so that we may have wise judg¬ 
ment as before God’s all-seeing eye. “Whatso¬ 
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. ” The 
Bible abounds with the teaching that an awful 
retributive judgment awaits those who have more 
than is possible for them to use, while millions are 
in distressing need. To truly pity these I grant 
is difficult. These, together with the indifferent 
electorate, are the destroyers of our race, but we 
must say with the stricken Saviour, “Father, for¬ 
give them; for they know not what they do.” 
And we may be assured that many do not realize 
the enormity of their sins of omission or commis¬ 
sion. And so, if we of the inert mass could make 
a great effort to revive our dormant senses, and do 
all that we can, perhaps it would be an object 
lesson to this self-centred Mammon-possessed por¬ 
tion of our people. And thus we might become 
a resurrected and not a decayed people. 

Sometimes I seem to see a fairer vision of old 


192 


Which Temple Ye Are 


England. I seem to see her strongest, most virile 
sons and daughters still streaming in a constant 
exodus to the more rigorous, more strenuous ex¬ 
periences of our colonies and dominions—Greater 
Britain. I see them bravely and with loyal pride, 
building such an Empire as this world never saw, 
perhaps never shall see again. I see lesser Britain 
still the seat of the Imperial administration, still 
the Crown Jewel amongst those less splendid, still 
the motherland of a numerous and healthy develop¬ 
ing growing family. I see her developing within 
herself such Christlike qualities that the world 
wonders, and stands in awe of her goodness. I see 
the rich and masterful, humbly offering all their 
possessions for the redemption of their brothers 
in hunger-land. I see them giving of their culture 
to the children of ignorance. I see them fathering 
whole colonies of degenerate and homeless ones with 
tenderest care. I see the women of this responsible 
wealthy class gladly exchanging their glittering 
jewels for the precious gems of the lives of little 
hungry children. I see Mephistopheles shrinking 
backward, and ever backward, until he disappears 
behind the hills of darkness. I see the Redeemer 
of the world smiling in benign and brotherly 
tenderness over a once rebellious, but now repent¬ 
ant, race of people. I hear Him murmuring, As 
ye do it to these ye do it also to Me. For long 
years the Son of Man had scarce where to lay His 
weary head, but at last He finds a welcome home 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 193 


in the hearts of men. May God in His mercy send 
us the realization of this fairer vision. 

We may be assured that our most worldly people 
are tiring of the harlots, the swine, and the husks. 
We see marked indications of a hopeless ennui 
amongst them in the ever revolving rounds of their 
so-called pleasure. We see them in vain striving 
after some new excitement in the way of toys, some 
new relish in the way of sensual luxury. If these 
really desire a new and lasting sensation they will 
find that holy aspirations and tender compassion 
will provide, not only a new sensation within their 
minds and souls, but one of divinely happiest 
quality, one that will endure throughout eternity, 
and will never cloy their purified appetites. Oh, 
how these coarser pleasures cloy the finer senses 
and stifle heaven-bom aspirations! We see some of 
this class already arising to go to their Father. 
Though they be yet afar off, still, if they have 
started to go towards Home, the Father is looking 
for them. If these would but walk carefully and 
obediently by the best light that they now have, 
and ask God for minute direction in all their new 
efforts towards the restoration of our people— 
and especially themselves—what a power for good 
they would be! 

By helping to save the weak and needy under the 
Spirit’s guidance they would be saving themselves. 
It is a most difficult thing for a rich person to be 
saved , as he is not sound enough in morals for 


13 


194 


Which Temple Ye Are 


salvation. But Christ can save him by teaching 
him just what he had better do with his en¬ 
cumbering possessions. He explained the process 
to the lovable and rich young ruler, thus: “One 
thing thou lackest yet: sell all that thou hast, 
and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me.” This 
testing advice made the young ruler exceeding 
sorrowful—and he went away. He could not 
bring himself to part with so much that he thought 
was his own. It is a lesson for all rich persons in 
the testing time, and the testing time must come, 
for the cattle upon a thousand hills are His, and 
the world is His and the fulness thereof. So we 
cannot withhold the legitimate use of it from the 
children with impunity. To the wicked, God said, 
“Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I 
tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: 
whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glori- 
fieth me; and to him that ordereth his way aright 
will I show the salvation of God. ” 

The salvation of God, what a restful abiding gift 
is offered to us, if we will but become worthy of it. 
Are the rich who are revelling in their cloying 
pleasures the only guilty ones? True, if I have 
little to give, I am not so important a factor in a 
community as he who has much; but, if I do not 
give of my little, my sin is the same crime as is 
that of the purse-bound millionaire. My sin 
causes less loss to the people than his. The salva- 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 195 


tion of each of us is in grave peril. If I give the 
little that I can spare, I am at least equal to him 
who gives much from his vast resources. If I 
give a little from that which I am in need of my¬ 
self, I excel him in generous courage. This we 
are taught from the illustration of the giving of 
the “mite” by the poor widow of old. 

When one enters the larger field of the general 
public, where shall we point to the gravest peril? 
In “competitive business”—a term which loosely 
covers all useful phases of life, and some that are 
not useful—where shall we not find that unsound¬ 
ness which prohibits salvation? Christ came that 
He might save the people from their sins. Com¬ 
petition itself is an unholy institution; and yet 
our business structures are founded upon it. If 
we pass our professional and commercial national 
life, as it really exists, before the tribunal of a few 
sayings of the Saviour, we shall find that we are un¬ 
sound to the very core. If we were but righteous 
enough to fulfil the old law of “An eye for an 
eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” we should at least 
have some idea of justice. A man in a business 
office will smile when you suggest magnanimity 
from him towards other business men. To resist 
not, to turn the other cheek, to give his cloak after 
being robbed of his coat, to go farther than he is 
asked, to lend without discrimination, these things 
are quite outside of his philosophy. The fact is, 
he would soon be in the bankruptcy courts. And 


196 


Which Temple Ye Are 


yet our Saviour said that we must do all these 
things. This selfish competition is the most diffi¬ 
cult and perilous plague spot which infects our 
people. Christ commands, ‘* Do unto others as you 
would that they should do to you. ’’ Satan whispers 
to our selfish instinct, Others will do evil to you, 
do evil to them first in self-defence. Christ com¬ 
mands, “Bear ye one another’s burdens”: Satan 
whispers, Make others bear your burdens, make a 
strong position for yourself out of the weakness of 
others. And thus we see throughout our people, 
the strong sapping the vitality of the weak, the 
influential overpowering the insignificant. Sur¬ 
vival of the fittest really seems to be Natural Law, 
and it certainly is business law , but our Saviour’s 
law is of a different class. Business says, Save the 
few. Our Saviour says, Save all, and give the 
weak your especial care and consideration. And 
is not our Saviour’s economics of a vastly wider 
reach than the narrow selfish competitive system 
of man? Put a test case. If occasion demanded 
that every grown man in the kingdom were required 
at once for some special service—defence if you 
will—are we a greater, stronger people because we 
have half-starved and treated worse than animals 
many millions of us? These are dead weights on 
a people’s activity, when they should be sound and 
healthy, useful integral units of our Empire. We 
do not insist on sound men for Active Defence, 
as our Saviour told us to resist not , but there is no 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 197 


defence so invincible as the sense of security arising 
from a splendid and wise people, each a splendid 
unit of a grand whole. Competition and inequality 
are incongruities in a Christian country. But 
these are our strongest motive-powers, not only in 
the lines of merchandise but in the legal and medical 
professions, and I am sorry to know also in the 
religious profession, in the ministry of this very 
gospel that was to redeem us from our unholy 
usages. There is little difference between the 
ordinary stock market, the Bulls and Bears of the 
pit, and the systems by which the choicest positions 
are gained by those who strive after them most 
craftily in the Churches. Evidence is not lacking 
to substantiate this grave charge. I think that 
we may find symbolic meaning in the incident of 
our Saviour and the money changers, whom He 
drove from out the Temple courts, with a scourge 
of cords. Be sure the symbol shall fulfil itself. 
The abominations are plentiful in the holy place 
to-day, no abomination is more deadly than the 
love of gain of the money changers. This brings 
into the very Temple courts the same competitive 
habit which undisguisedly obtains in commerce. 
But He will certainly come soon with the scourge of 
cords in His hand. How could even the priestly 
Aaron approach Jehovah without his proper 
regalia? He could not talk to Him nor could he 
be wise enough to judge the people until thus 
equipped. Nor can the priesthood to-day ap- 


198 


Which Temple Ye Are 


proach Jehovah and ask of Him that especial 
guidance, unless they too have a breastplate of 
precious stones, chiefest of which are Light and 
Perfection. The judging of the people, by them, 
is not a thing of to-day. We “common people ” 
judge of their actions more than they ours. And 
they should be standing between us and our Saviour 
asking advice when it is specially required, and 
standing before the people as judges of right and 
wrong. Because they lack true Light, and are 
blind shepherds, and because they do not obey 
the best that they know, and thus become per¬ 
fected, they have not these words on their hearts 
and their vision has failed. Where now is the 
prophet of God in the ministry of the Gospel? 
Where is the Apostle that can cast forth demons, 
heal the sick, talk with God, and stand continually 
in His blessed presence? Am I in error? Are 
there such? I do most sincerely hope that I may 
be, at least partly, in error. Surely some of these 
are obtainers of some assurances of the Spirit that 
they are true apostles. If none have these gifts, 
what shall we do? Shall we hold a mission to 
convert to the Evangel of the Lord Christ our 
ministry? But who of us could hold this mission? 
Who of us who do not minister at the sacred altar 
is fit to perform such service? We seem to be in 
an exceedingly grave peril. I think we had better 
unite throughout the land, in, first, a general 
mission unto repentance, then perhaps by the help 


“The Urim and the Thummim” 199 

of the Spirit whom He will send, we may become 
more nearly obedient to our Light. In time, we 
may attain to that much to be desired status, 
Perfection. Not that we can dare hope for fulness 
of the obedient, the abundant life, in this world, 
but we can and must attain to that state of being 
which compares with a finely developed child 
of obedient and loving disposition; the Perfect 
Child. 


“Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah! 
Pilgrim through this barren land; 

I am weak, but Thou art mighty, 

Hold me with Thy powerful hand. 
Bread of heaven! 

Feed me till I want no more. 

“ Open Thou the crystal fountain, 

Whence the healing stream doth flow; 
Let the fiery, cloudy pillar 
Lead me all my journey through: 
Strong Deliverer! 

Be Thou still my strength and shield. ” 


CHAPTER X 


“IF I BY THE FINGER OF GOD M 


“But if I by the finger of God cast out demons, then is the 
Kingdom of God come upon you.... He that is not with me 
is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. ” 


Luke xi. 20-23. 


“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if 
I do them, though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye 
may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in 
the Father. ” John x. 37, 38. 


“Brief brawling day, with its noisy phantasms, its poor paper 
crowns tinsel gilt, is gone; and divine everlasting night with her 
star diadems, with her silences and her veracities is come! What 
hast thou done, and how? Happiness, unhappiness; all that 
was but thy wages thou hast; thou hast spent all that, in sus¬ 
taining thyself hitherward; not a coin of it remains with thee, 
it is all spent, eaten; and now thy work, where is thy work? 
Swift, out with it; let us see thy work. ” 



HUS Carlyle could never bring himself to see a 


A human being apart from his work. Was he 
prejudiced in taking such sweeping views regarding 
the importance of work? After all, do we not 
always consciously, or it may be unconsciously, see 


200 



“If I by the Finger of God” 


201 


a man entirely through his works? That we each 
may have different standards of what we deem to 
be valuable service, or otherwise, is certain, but 
we must mainly agree that personality is made up 
of capacity for some physical, intellectual, or 
spiritual energy. 

The man who is the most highly endowed with 
all these is a superman, shall we call him? A 
mere giant in physical strength and stature might 
be only a super-pugilist. A merely intellectual 
giant might become little better than an unprinted 
encyclopaedia. A merely spiritual giant might 
become far too oblivious to mortal affairs to be a 
really useful citizen. If we have not a goodly 
measure of health and strength, we are greatly 
impeded in our desire to be useful. If we have 
bodily vigour but a poorly equipped and unevenly 
balanced or stunted intellect, we are, I think, more 
seriously impeded. But if we have both vigour 
of body and strength and culture of mind, we are 
still quite useless as co-workers with Christ, unless 
we are spiritually vigorous. Many a soul that 
is confined in a weary and suffering body has done 
grand service to the race. Many instances could 
be quoted of such. Also many a simple-minded 
soul with little or no culture has been the doer of 
grand deeds for the brotherhood of man. Many 
of these also could be brought to mind. But you 
cannot show me a man void of spiritual life who 
has accomplished lasting good to his fellows. But 


202 


Which Temple Ye Are 


I do not wish to be misunderstood in the meaning 
of the term spiritual. I take it that he who has for 
the burden of his desires the lifting of humanity 
to a higher plane, and who feels that he is thus 
striving in conscious unison with the Over-soul, 
this man, I take it, is spiritual-minded. He may 
be of any or no conscious creed, but he will have 
lifted himself up through these mists to a plane 
that is within vision of the Throne of the Redeemer 
of Mankind. And if we desire to beget a super¬ 
race we shall be obliged to strive towards this 
end by bringing every unit of the whole into this 
excellent state. 

Perhaps the classics give us the truest picture of 
our race as men of great physical strength, health, 
and beauty. This mere animal age cannot be said 
to have ceased to be, until we as enraged or ava¬ 
ricious animals cease to slay and devour one another. 
Until we cease to slay in war, that most savagely 
brutal of all our many mere animal propensities, 
we are still mere pugilists. So long as some of us 
have food that we do not require, while some of us 
do require it for the proper sustenance of our bodies 
we are devouring one another. We are taking the 
flesh from off our brother’s body, and we have not 
even the excuse that we need or desire it. We slay 
and devour in many ways that have to be traced 
out before being fully realized by us. Do we not 
still “devour the poor secretly”? I greatly fear 
that animalism still largely predominates. But 


“If I by the Finger of God” 203 


even in classic days some were wise, some were 
even spiritual. Our present age was young when 
Enoch walked with God, and Abraham separated 
himself from his spiritual contemporaries and 
became the friend of God. We were long ago given 
a Moses and a Solon, and we have long ago learned 
to love the prophets, and some of the less favoured 
seers, the philosophers. But the animal age seems 
to have overlapped strangely through medieval 
times and has not yet ceased its unwholesome 
influence. There seems to have been a striving 
for greater intellectual vigour just preceding the 
Christian era. The prophets, philosophers and 
poets, and such Apostles as Paul and John, and 
some others of the early Christian era, were of a 
brain-stirring intellectual type. A little later on, 
the early Christian religionists were of a strong 
mental capacity, and continued to be so for a few 
centuries. A century or two still later on, and 
intellectuality lay gasping for its very life in the 
degrading embrace of mere animalism, until 
Europe became flooded with one of the cruellest 
and most loathsome reversions to animalism that 
the poor earth has (I hope) ever witnessed. Ani¬ 
malism said to its children, “If you dare to think 
so-and-so you shall be burnt, sawn asunder, 
racked.” And so countless spiritually and intel¬ 
lectually minded sons of the race were hurried 
away into the presence of the dear Saviour Whom 
they loved so faithfully, and Whom they had 


204 


Which Temple Ye Are 


striven even unto death to serve. But the 
intellectuality of our race had been re-aroused, 
never more to sleep. Although our pugilistic or 
brutal instinct is not yet conquered, we rejoice to 
know that it is quietly dying from the cleansing fires 
of the intellect. It is dying of scorn and shame. 
While this is true of our cruelly brutal instincts, 
yet from out the ashes of these fires there is arising a 
new physical instinct, which has for its purpose the 
giving of bodily health and vigour to the children 
of the race. The mind of man is conceiving the 
idea that a race is composed of countless peoples. 
Each people is composed of a variety of persons. 
In nearly all States some are degenerate for want of 
health-sustaining conditions; some of whom have 
too much luxury, and too little incentive in life; 
some of whom have too little to eat, too few clothes, 
too squalid habitations, and for highest incentive 
the next loaf of bread. So we find, that in what we 
term the “middle-class” life, where the mind is at 
its highest in humanity, with but meagre excep¬ 
tions, there is a strong thought-wave arising which 
has for its high-tide the equalization and uplifting 
of the brotherhood of mankind. This movement, 
thank God, is in no way confined to our own nation. 
But we must see the fact that the equalizing pro¬ 
cess is well begun in our own midst. There is one 
way in which I think, perhaps, we are leading in 
this high attaining. I think that our highest leaders 
are conscious that they are working for the general 


“If I by the Finger of God” 205 


brotherhood in unison with Christ the Redeemer of 
men. We feel that, so far, these efforts have been 
mostly of an intellectual character, and that slowly, 
but surely, the spiritual instincts of our leaders are 
becoming more fully aroused, and are more surely 
permeating all efforts towards that high goal, a 
Redeemed N ation. When the leaders of our nation 
and a goodly following of this great body, the 
“middle class,” the electorate, have publicly 
witnessed that they will serve only Christ, and 
have become endowed with the Holy Spirit so 
that they may always be wise to do, then it is 
time for those who “Devour the poor secretly,” 
or more openly, to tremble with fear for an impend¬ 
ing doom. Already we see many, in anger and 
fear, striving in all conceivable ways to escape 
from the overshadowing Nemesis: 


“Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, 

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. ” 

God has created, has preserved, and will redeem. 
It is He Who holds the universe in His hands, and 
composes the music of the heavens, Who orders the 
countless systems of stars in their smaller and 
greater orbits, Who chastens the infinitude of space 
by the cooling and invigorating winds, Who di¬ 
vides the sea from land, and sets the nearer winds 
and clouds on their daily journey on our little 
planet, Who sorts out the various elements for our 


206 Which Temple Ye Are 

use, and forms us and sustains us in our harmoni¬ 
ous, but intricate, bodies; and breathes of His 
Own Spirit into us in order that we may not go 
back into decay, but go ever forward and upward 
into a state which He has prepared for us. It is 
He Who healeth all our infirmities, Who arranges 
the minute atoms of our bodies, and orders them 
to their respective places of service. Service! 
Where would we poor atoms be, did the Great God 
refuse to serve us? Shall we never learn that 
service only , is great? 

We must cast aside for ever the idea, if we wish 
for a forever, that service is ignoble. “We serve 
the Race ” is the only legend that is worthy of place 
in our heraldry. This motto is worthy of the only 
eternal nobility, depend upon it. God is God 
because He is mighty to conceive and to perform. 
That state of All-Thought and All-Might is God. 
God spoke from out His heavens to us in acknow¬ 
ledgment of One of us, Who had conquered all ill 
tendencies, Who had become perfected by the pain 
and travail of His soul, and had so arrived at true 
Sonship thus, “ This is my beloved Son, . . . hear 
ye Him. ” This beloved Son Who is our Redeemer 
from sins said, “My Father worketh even unto 
now, and I work.” We boast of our noble ances¬ 
try, but none surely has greater than God and 
His Son, our Lord. This is Eternal Nobility. 
Jesus was constantly admonishing His professed 
followers to work the good works. It is unthink- 


“If I by the Finger of God” 207 


able that a true lover of God the Father would be 
unwilling to assist the perfect Son in the redeeming 
and restoring process of our day and generation. 
It is an untenable position to hold, that one may be 
a believer in the Redeemer, and not strive to 
assist Him in His office of saving the people from 
their sins—our sins. But then, we do hold fast 
to many of our untenable positions. Intellect 
has not quite risen to his throne as yet. On our 
breastplate must be written Light, as preceding 
Perfection. When the “Light of the World” 
spoke to us during His short human ministry to 
humanity, He invariably spoke words of such 
wisdom and reason that twenty centuries of 
criticism has not been able to refute His words. 
Verily He was indeed the Word. It is to Him 
alone that we must go to find the last word on any 
social subject. In His esoteric teaching we shall 
certainly find our sure answer. The Word spoke 
to us from out His throne thus, “Behold, I come 
quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to 
each man according as his work is. ” As we think, 
so we work. As we work, so are we judged. As 
we are judged, so are we rewarded. As we are 
rewarded, so shall we live or die. But it is not of 
first importance to my soul as to whether I die or 
live. The highest duty of my soul is to endeavour 
by the help of the Spirit to persuade other souls to 
endeavour to live. 

The whole duty of man is both simple and com- 


208 


Which Temple Ye Are 


plex. Simple in the one desire to do that which is 
just and right, and complex enough, as we become 
interwoven in the intricacies of modem social and 
commercial life. As we are each mentally trained, 
and socially environed, so will our outlook on the 
distressing and disgracefully evil conditions which 
prevail amongst us, take colour. As they take 
colour to us, so do we observe them, so only can 
we observe them, so must we look carefully into 
causes and effects, and so shall our vision shape 
our service. As our vision is, as our talents are, 
so is our usefulness shaped and measured. This 
is our individual call to duty from the Father 
of all the children of men. “Duty! wondrous 
thought, that workest neither by fond insinuations, 
flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by holding 
up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for 
thyself always reverence, if not always obedience; 
before whom all appetites are dumb, however 
secretly they rebel; Whence thy original?” 
Whence thy original? Kant wisely asks. Do 
we not find the true answer to this in the lines, 
“Stem daughter of the voice of God! Oh, Duty! 
if that name thou love.” And so we shall find 
duty to be the call of God to us to fill our day, and 
use all our talents for work, even as He works, as 
the Son of man and of God works. Duty is ever 
calling us to service. She is that inner voice which 
strives to weave out from our talents, culture, and 
circumstances, a path for the conscious will to 


“If I by the Finger of God” 209 


exert its volition over our rather unwilling minds 
and bodies. Sometimes she lashes us as with a 
scourge of cords; at time she suggests, persuades, 
or pitifully entreats us to rise to our privileges 
of service. This so noble privilege—service for 
the children—is, shall we say, the soul’s food. 
The starving soul pitifully entreats us to work for 
our own, its own, security. It lashes us on—if we 
be awake—to do that thing for the common wel¬ 
fare that we alone are called upon by God to do. 
This call comes to all real souls . There is a strange 
word said by Peter. He is speaking of a class of 
evil persons and describes them as “Creatures 
without reason, born mere animals to be taken 
and destroyed.” If we are not conscious of any 
desire to assist in this redemptive work, we must 
be either still in coma, very wicked, or we may 
perchance be one of those of whom St. Peter speaks 
as “mere animals.” I do not see how this can be 
refuted by any one who believes in Christ and the 
Scriptures, or by any one who considers the con¬ 
ditions which are essential to the eternal life of 
a soul. 

Jesus Christ told His accusers thus, “But if I by 
the finger of God cast out demons, then is the King¬ 
dom of God come upon you. . . . He that is 
not with me is against me; and he that gathereth 
not with me scattereth. ” 

We are led to believe by Church history that 
there has been an uninterrupted succession of 


14 


210 


Which Temple Ye Are 


apostles of the Evangel of Jesus Christ from His 
immediate day even until now. We would pre¬ 
sume the case, that this succession worked through 
the first three hundred years, and into the united 
Christian and Pagan Church of Constantine’s day. 
That, of course, gave us the organization which 
we now know as the “Roman Catholic Church.” 
If there were local secessions before this event, 
this succession would be also their right to claim. 
Afterwards, also, divisions from this old mother- 
Church would still be in direct succession if it 
were an ordained clergy that seceded. So we take 
the stand that all clergy of either Roman, Greek, 
or Protestant Catholic Church are in direct suc¬ 
cession from Christ and His immediate Apostles. 
When our clergy seceded, at the time of the 
Reformation, they brought this official distinction 
with them. I believe that few of the Noncon¬ 
formists of England claim to have an unbroken 
succession, so we shall not include that phase of 
Protestantism in our land, here, but only that 
which claims distinct succession, namely, our 
State Church of England. We cannot therefore 
deny the right of our National Clergy to be the 
direct followers of the first Apostles. Neither can 
we deny this distinction to the clergy of the Church 
of Rome. Therefore all prophecies concerning 
Christendom involve, at least, these two classes of 
clergy. The Church of Rome we as a nation have 
for ever set aside. Therefore the responsibility 


“If I by the Finger of God” 


211 


of the religious life of our people should rest entirely 
on the shoulders of the clergy of our State Chinch. 
And this distinction we find that they claim. 
Nonconformists are, according to our laws at 
present, irresponsible outsiders. So we shall hope 
to find the true faith as it was in Christ Jesus with¬ 
in this sacred circle, Anglicanism. We search our 
Book of Common Prayer, the most blessedly 
beautiful book in the world I do most truly be¬ 
lieve, outside of our Scriptures. We are filled with 
admiration at the devotional spirit of it, and feel 
that the Spirit of God surely permeates its service. 
We feel it to be good enough guide for our devo¬ 
tional exercises, if we also be permeated by the 
same Spirit. We must stand in a rebellious atti¬ 
tude towards some pronouncements in her too 
exclusive creeds, unless we can find a way of 
intelligently qualifying them, as they should 
always he qualified. We rejoice at the purity and 
holiness of our National Religion when we read all 
these beautiful lines. We read in religious and 
historic literature that “our faith” has been all- 
sufficient to give regeneration of soul to many of 
her children. Some human souls have attained 
to most Christlike quality within her fold, and 
have lived only to serve the race as best they could, 
even as did our Saviour in His best capacity. At 
present we look within her formal organization for 
the true apostles of the Lord Christ. We may 
well rejoice to be able to say that we may—by 


212 


Which Temple Ye Are 


searching—find them, not a Jew. Not a Jew are 
in an agony of apprehension at the desecration of 
the holy place. Not a Jew are endeavouring, we 
may well believe, with all their powers to bring 
into prominence once more the Evangel of Jesus 
the Christ. Not a few, we may well believe, would 
most willingly cast aside the glare and tinsel and 
bring the people back once more to the feet of 
Him Who said, “Except ye turn, and become as 
little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the 
Kingdom of Heaven. ” But the effort is too great 
for the few alone. And as we, or they, are not like 
little children, we are not in the Kingdom of Heaven, 
but in a place where every foul creature thrives: 
such foul creatures as Greed, Ambition, Tyranny, 
Self-adulation and Self-aggrandisement will there 
be found flourishing. Who will deny this? Oh, 
for a spiritual mission amongst our clergy! All 
true Christlike mission work must first begin in 
Jerusalem—Spiritual Jerusalem. Does she need 
this work of cleansing in this nation? Read the 
moans of pain and righteous anger that are arising 
from the Jew , her more evangelical numbers, and 
you will agree that surely the abomination of 
desolation is in the holy place. IJ apostolic suc¬ 
cession brought holiness all would be well. But 
does it? 

Does legal succession to any office ensure that it 
shall be wisely functioned? Our Royal succession 
has been filled in by a variety of persons, some of 


“If I by the Finger of God” 213 


whom have disgraced our throne, some of whom 
have added stability and glory to it, some of whom 
have given it comparative purity in religious and 
social life, some of whom have stood and received 
the crown as though it were a responsibility placed 
upon them by God Himself—as indeed it is. We 
think that an unprejudiced mind will find pretty 
full evidence—as full as most other historic evi¬ 
dence—that our Royal line is in direct succession 
from the line of Judah, and should always be con¬ 
sidered from that standpoint. When Jacob was 
about to be gathered to his fathers, he called to¬ 
gether his sons that he might foretell to them their 
destinies. To Judah he said, “The sceptre shall 
not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from 
between his feet, [marginal rendering] till he come 
to Shiloh , having the obedience of the peoples .” 
Although there seems to be lack of absolute surety 
as to whether Shiloh refers to the Messiah, or to 
the city of Shiloh, it matters little to us, since we 
know this city to be the abiding place of the Ark 
of the Covenant for a long time, and we know it 
to be in other ways a city strikingly symbolic 
in meaning. It was also a sanctuary and a 11 striking 
example of the divine indignation.” If we take 
the word Shiloh to mean a man’s name, then we 
find that it means Pacific or Peacemaker. This 
view favours the accepted rendering for the R.V., 
namely, “ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until 


214 


Which Temple Ye Are 


Shiloh come; and unto him shall the obedience of 
the peoples be.” While naturally we must all 
prefer this latter explanation, still we find the 
idea contained in both, that the sceptre should 
remain with Judah until the obedience of the people 
is ensured. Alas, we cannot dare to assert that the 
peoples have ever yet been obedient or in full mea¬ 
sure pacific. But do we not see the beginnings of a 
series of climactic completions of this long-reaching 
prophetic word? I think that we should expect 
our sceptre to remain exactly where it is to-day— 
and has been for ages under God’s most peculiar 
providence—until the peoples have become obedi¬ 
ent and pacific. Then Christ alone shall reign, or 
overreign. 

When our people have all become obedient and 
pacific , we shall be a redeeming power in the world. 
Do we not see this foreshadowing of Christ’s con¬ 
quest creeping into all our public affairs? Do we 
not see that men are pausing in their mad party 
strife to consider that which is just and right? Do 
we not see the spiritual qualities of our leaders, 
from King downwards, striving to rise up through 
all the encumbrances of animalism, and wrongly 
directed intellectuality, that almost overwhelms 
them? The State department of our Church and 
State really seems to be in a more active spiritual 
condition than the Church phase, in its general 
function. It is the State’s function to make wise 
laws, and see that the people obey them. It is the 


“If I by the Finger of God” 215 


Church’s function to be an irresistible influence on 
the minds and lives of the people towards morality 
and godliness, to restore the sick, to make com¬ 
fortable the needy and afflicted, and to lead them 
all gently to the feet of the Lord Jesus Who said, 
Suffer the little ones to come unto me. Self- 
sacrifice and humble service for the uplifting of 
the individuals of our nation is its only legitimate 
function as an organization. All students of the 
Evangel of Jesus must see it thus. If our clergy 
have come in an unbroken line of succession from 
the first Apostles of Jesus the Christ, then they 
must follow in the footsteps, and teach the same 
teaching, and do the same works, and live the same 
sort of life of utter self-sacrifice, as did these 
Apostles. The few of our clergy seem to keep close 
to the first teaching, but as is well known and fully 
conceded, the many are veering dangerously near 
to Rome, and some are openly returning to her 
idolatrous usages. This, no one who reads the 
news of the hour would think of denying. But 
can even u the few ” do the first works? Does the 
message of our Lord to the Church at Ephesus 
apply to them?— 

“ I know thy works, and thy toil and stedfastness (or 
patience), and that thou canst not bear evil men, and 
didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they 
are not, and didst find them false; and thou hast 
stedfastness (or patience) and didst bear for my 
name’s sake, and hast not grown weary. But I have 


216 


Which Temple Ye Are 


this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love. 
Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and re¬ 
pent and do the first works; or else I come to thee, 
and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except 
thou repent.” 

And does not the message to the Church at 
Philadelphia apply to the still fewer souls who 
have a “little power”? 

“ I know thy works (behold, I have set before thee a 
door opened, which none can shut), that thou hast a 
little power, and didst keep my word, and didst not 
deny my name. . . . Because thou didst keep the 
word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour 
of trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole 
world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” 

On these lesser few, under Christ, do our hopes de¬ 
pend. If there is succession of office, there should 
also be succession of power. I think there must be 
a little power in some few of our clergy to-day, and 
so also all down the weary “Two thousand years 
of wrong.” The final call to the Eleven was to 
repent from their unbelief, and to go and preach 
the gospel to the whole creation. Did not our State 
Church repent in a degree, at the time of the 
Reformation; and has she not since been a zealous 
missionary power throughout the world? Is she 
not still so? But has the Messiah’s promise been 
realized as yet? If not, why has it not? He said: 


“If I by the Finger of God’’ 217 


‘ ‘ And these signs shall accompany them that believe; 
in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall 
speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, 
and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise 
hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they 
shall recover.” 


It is written that these “went forth, and preached 
everywhere, the Lord working with them, and 
confirming the word by the signs that followed.” 
If there be a few true successors to the Eleven, this 
promise is certainly theirs. Then we may with 
reason inquire whether we have, or have not, in 
our midst, Apostles of Christ, who hold and use 
these powers. We would draw from our above 
quotation that some have a little power. I think 
that in the face of all the occultism that is being 
brought into evidence by many persons quite out¬ 
side this sacred circle, and in the face of all the 
healing that has undoubtedly been accomplished 
by Christian Science, surely, pretty soon our faith 
in the possibility of a present Christ assisting and 
endowing a willing company of apostles, will be an 
acknowledged verity. There is nothing standing 
in the way of these endowments except unbelief , 
and a strange unwillingness , on the part of our 
religious leaders. Healing has been done to some 
extent in a few instances. I know of a small 
Christian denomination (which is also, I believe, 
in the United States) in my own province, who are 


2lS 


Which Temple Ye Are 


not only Christians, but “orthodox,” who certainly 
have the gift of healing the sick by prayer and 
anointing; and proofs of this have come to my 
definite knowledge. My personal experience is 
not utterly lacking in this line, both in the receiv¬ 
ing and the doing, but only as occasional, and not 
as a fixed certainty at all times, but quite enough 
to establish the verity in my own belief that Christ 
is not dead hut risen. If there is a vestige of truth 
in Christian Science, occultism, and kindred things 
—and who can deny it—why is it so difficult for us 
to think that Christ is indeed risen , and that He 
will keep His promises to His sleepy Church if they 
will only awake, repent, and accept of the mar¬ 
vellous gift which is their heritage? In the sweetest 
of assuring memories which have come down to us 
from the conversations of Jesus and His disciples, 
there is one word that is most strangely and insult¬ 
ingly ignored by His loud-voiced general Church. 
He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that 
believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do 
also; and greater works than these shall he do: 
because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever 
ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the 
Father may be glorified in the Son. ” I wish that 
these three chapters (John xiv., xv., xvi.) were read 
and re-read by the few who are so near to being true 
apostles, so that they might feel filled with repent¬ 
ance at their so long ignored opportunity, and 
would conclude to rise to their privilege of power for 


“If I by the Finger of God” 219 


service as one man, united with the one thought, 
to accept the endowment of the Spirit of God, and 
to do the first works of Jesus Christ and His 
immediate Apostles. This I believe they must do, 
or give place to others who will. When Jesus began 
His ministry, He began expounding the Scriptures 
to the acknowledged Church of His time and race. 
He gave instructions to the Apostles to begin 
preaching at Jerusalem. Is there a service, or 
mission to our nation along this line, and if so, by 
whom should it be done? We need not be long 
in doubt as to whether this line of service is 
required, in order to clear the body religious of its 
heretical usages. And this, we rejoice to see, we 
find these few, who are more nearly Christlike, 
doing. Some of these heretical teachings and 
practices are easily refuted, notably that of the 
worship of the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, often 
impiously called the 41 Mother of God. ” How can 
we but feel the tenderest sympathy and affection 
for this “Fair Maid of Galilee,” in the wonderfully 
mystifying travail, of both body and soul, that 
came upon her?—in her strange and un-under- 
standable experiences with her strangely and 
uniquely gifted Son—and at last, saddest of all, in 
her disappointed motherhood. The “Mother of 
Sorrows” lived to see this so promising a Son 
hanging on an ignominious cross along with law¬ 
less robbers. Though she afterwards saw that the 
grave could not hold Him, still, her suffering 


220 


Which Temple Ye Are 


must always have been extreme, and her disap¬ 
pointment in Him at many times during His life, 
must have been torture to her soul. So we must 
sympathize with her in great tenderness, and give 
proper honour to one who was by God given the 
honour of being the human mother of Him who is 
our Saviour—but here we must stop. The wor¬ 
ship and bowing down to graven images is so 
plainly an idolatrous heresy and usage that we 
may rather wonder how people who profess Christ¬ 
ianity ever have fallen into this entirely unscrip- 
tural and wholly satanic pitfall. As regards 
addressing our clergy as “Fathers,” and as to 
speaking of the early Christian writers as the 
“early Fathers,” we can easily judge how far it is 
sanctioned by Christ Jesus our Founder. In that 
notable address of our Lord given to us by Mat¬ 
thew, after giving a description of a ministry which 
looks very familiar to us to-day, he says distinctly: 
“And call no man your father on the earth; for 
one is your Father, even he who is in heaven.” 
These utterances along here for a few pages of 
the Scripture would be worth the while of our 
ritualistic friends to make a study of. All these 
foolish practices are so foreign to true Christianity 
that we do much wonder that it is not more gener¬ 
ally perceived whence they have emanated. It 
is not right, not even fair, to play the part of 
Apostles of Christ Jesus and all the while to work 
steadily for the final overthrow of His Kingdom. 


“If I by the Finger of God” 221 


When our nominal Church is cleansed, the cleans¬ 
ing of our nation, aye the world, will soon follow. 
Are there no demons to cast forth to-day? Is 
there a noble army of Apostles who can say with 
the Messiah, “If I by the finger of God cast out 
demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon 
you”? Who will teach the people that he that is 
not working for the Kingdom is working against 
it; that they who are not gathering into it, are 
scattering it? The demons of all sorts of lusts are 
holding us in their unholy thraldom. The lust 
of wealth; the lust of powerful, baneful influence; 
the lust of terrorizing the weaker ones into sub¬ 
mission; the lust of sensual passions, to the 
ghoulish hurt of our race; the lust of that insidious 
suicidal habit, strong drink; the lust of expensive 
and rare foods, in the face of the starving little 
ones; the lust of personal vanity, which seduces 
some to lavishly waste on the adornment of their 
own persons, while the millions are shivering in 
inadequate rags; the lust of assertiveness and 
arrogance of mind; the lust of, even learning, at 
the expense of the Christian life; the lust of the 
sensational, the phenomenal, the spectacular; and 
lusts too numerous to mention: these are the 
demons to be cast out to-day. If all these demons 
were cast forth into some great herd of swine—to 
which they are closely allied—what a joyous world 
of souls we should be. How easy would be the 
healing of all our infirmities. Those who are 


222 


Which Temple Ye Are 


fearless enough to make the attempt, should re¬ 
member that no ill can touch them if they be true 
Apostles of the Lord Christ; no serpent can bite, 
or deadly thing hurt them. Christ said it. Is it 
that they are not willing to use this offered finger 
of God, or do they not see need of it, or whatever 
is it that does so unreasonably but effectually 
hinder the work of the Father? Don’t you believe 
that Christ is in the Father, and the Father in 
Him? You should believe for the very work’s sake. 
All sane men, who are Christians, know that there 
are awful and foolishly hurtful things existing to¬ 
day which could easily be overcome by the united 
effort of those who believe . All the commands and 
beseechings of our Lord seem to be of little avail 
in His Own house. “But Jesus said unto them, 
A prophet is not without honour, save in his own 
country, and in his own house. And he did not 
many mighty works there because of their un¬ 
belief.” From this utterance, applied to His 
present day house, it would seem as though we 
must hope for true apostleship, with but few 
exceptions, outside of our merely nominal spiritual 
Jerusalem. But we shall soon, I hope, find those 
who shall be true successors of Christ in that true 
spiritual Jerusalem which is not confined, thank 
God, within the prison bands of any dogmatic 
organization, but is within the hearts of men who 
can do great works with Christ; who can say with 
the Christ, “If I do not the works of my Father, 


“If I by the Finger of God” 223 


believe me not. But if I do, then though ye be¬ 
lieve me not, believe the works, that ye may know 
and understand that the Father is in me, and I 
in the Father.” 

“Jerusalem the glorious! 

The joy of the elect! 

O dear and future vision, 

That eager hearts expect; 

Ev’n now by faith I see thee, 

Ev’n here thy walls discern; 

To thee my thoughts are kindled, 

And strive, and pant, and yearn. ” 

Bernard of Cluny, tr. 


CHAPTER XI 


“quit you like men, be strong” 

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be 
strong. Let all that ye do be done in love. ” I Cor. xvi. 13, 14. 

“Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one; but 
each shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. 
For we are God’s fellow-workers: ye are God’s husbandry, God’s 
building. ” 1 Cor. iii. 8, 9. 

“Oh! it is hard to work for God, 

To rise and take His part 
Upon the battle-field of earth, 

And not sometimes lose heart! 

“ Workman of God! oh, lose not heart, 

But learn what God is like; 

And in the darkest battle-field, 

Thou shalt know where to strike, 

“For right is right, since God is God, 

And right the day must win, 

To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin.” 

F. W. Faber. 

T HE battle-field on which our nation in its 
entirety is to-day marshalled, has for its 
issue at the last analysis, not so much bread for 
the hungry, or relief of the suffering, as the differ- 

224 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 225 


entiating between right and wrong. All economics 
are entirely covered by this one issue. Therefore 
the call has gone forth to each soul, man, woman, 
or child, to decide this day whom they will choose. 
God has been very gracious to our nation; and it 
is high time that we put away our strange gods and 
turned to serve Jehovah, and Him only. Every 
Lord's Day throughout the year we piously testify 
that Him only will we serve. This we do, or 
should do, in all religious gatherings, whether it 
be State Church or Nonconformist. All our 
people (with a few rebellious exceptions) loosely 
acknowledge Christ Jesus as the Logos of God, 
and as our Saviour. Once a week, England, with 
her lips, testifies her allegiance to this King of 
Kings. She is the nucleus of a vast Empire of 
varied religious hue. It is for her to so lift up the 
Son of Man that all these peoples shall be drawn 
in irresistible admiration and adoration towards 
Him. Here lies our entire battle-ground. Christ 
is right. Satan is wrong. On the side of Christ’s 
reign are all the building and ennobling impulses of 
our day and generation. On the side of Satan’s 
reign are all the destructive and debasing impulses 
of our day and generation. Nearly two thousand 
years ago Christ laid down His code of perfect 
ethics. Nearly two thousand years ago did Christ 
refuse to accept the rule of the kingdoms of this 
world—at Satan’s price. For this long time has 
our Saviour been valiantly fighting to wrest His 

is 


22 6 


Which Temple Ye Are 


kingdom from Satan’s grasp. For some reason 
which is in the wisdom of the Father, Christ was 
not to accomplish this end for a given length of 
time. It is well nigh universally conceded by 
Bible students to be nearing its completion. There 
is every evidence of it in human affairs to-day, not 
only in our vast Empire, but throughout the world. 
Even Satan himself must laugh in derision at a so- 
called Christian who is not to-day working in 
unison with the Saviour of Men. The position is 
so untenable as to be an inconceivable folly in one 
who, even loosely, professes allegiance to the 
Saviour of Men. It is like playing about the 
mouth of a rumbling, seething volcano, which is 
well known to be on the eve of eruption. Cowardly 
fear alone should be sufficient cause to drive the 
multitude into the forming columns of the coming 
King. Righteous fear of God were an infinitely 
better reason for flocking to His standard. We 
have crowned our new earthly king, whom we all 
delight to honour. We, even the most pacific 
and sober-minded of us, are satisfied that the peace 
of our Empire shall be maintained by invincible 
defence. This must necessarily be our position 
until our Empire has become in all its issues obe¬ 
dient to the greater King: He Who saves the people 
from their sins. When we cease to sin, we may 
with assurance lay down our arms, and beat our 
swords into ploughshares and our spears into 
pruning hooks. This is the time when “They 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 227 


shall sit every man under his vine and under his 
fig tree; and none shall make them afraid. ” This 
is when the ox that treadeth out the com is not 
muzzled, when he that plougheth and thrasheth 
doeth it in hope of partaking, when “the husband¬ 
man that laboureth must be the first to partake of 
the fruits. ” But until this has all become a verity 
we must, at least, be valiant soldiers of the coming 
King. We must not fear or falter, for that is sin. 
We must quit us like brave soldiers, who know that 
they are fighting for a righteous cause, therefore 
must in the end win. And we must not consider 
any self-sacrifice too great. 

In the code of ethics given us in the various re¬ 
ports of the conversations of the Master, we find 
a standard of self-renunciation set up, that would 
puzzle the most self-sacrificing and unworldly of us 
to follow wholly. And yet it is said that He taught 
His disciples these things. If any of us feels that 
he would like to conform his life, thought, and 
action to the code of the King, let him try it in 
all earnestness of purpose. We feel pretty con¬ 
fident that unless such a one were possessed of 
almost godlike cleverness in the undertaking, and 
unless the Lord Christ especially protected him 
from the presumption of beggars, and the re¬ 
quirements of the physical body, he would soon 
reach the haven of the poor-house, prison, or 
insane asylum. Who could see it otherwise? 
Then are we to conclude that we are commanded 


228 


Which Temple Ye Are 


to a position which we cannot fill? Then shall we 
conclude that the Messiah failed as a lawgiver? 
May we of the Faith not logically feel somewhat 
chagrined to find that our Lawgiver failed, where 
a Moses, Lycurgus, Justinian, and a Solon may 
be said to have succeeded? We have no doubt 
that large numbers of citizens amongst their 
peoples absolutely obeyed their codes. Our na¬ 
tional laws, I think we may say, are absolutely 
obeyed by the great majority of our citizens to-day. 
Can this be said of the citizens to whom Christ left 
His code of ethics? Then we may well ask, Why 
has His regime so far failed to compel obedience? 
To answer this reasonable query we must first note 
the difference between the character of these local 
codes and that of Christ. Moses gave forth the 
law as God instructed him. This was God’s mode 
of disciplining His chosen people, thus preparing 
them for a day of grace and a regime that was not 
to work by punitive coercion but by the regenerated 
volition of the spirit of man. We find that these 
other lawgivers gave to these peoples codes for¬ 
mulated upon their requirements and their ability 
to obey them. Not the best they could form, but 
the best that the people were capable of obeying. 
The result in every case was the same. These codes 
only served for the nonce, they were not vitally 
imperishable, but were excellent by way of dis¬ 
cipline. When Christ came His mode was differ¬ 
ent, one might say opposite. Indeed He was 


“ Quit You Like Men, Be Strong’’ 229 


scarcely a lawgiver at all in the same sense as these 
truly great men. First, His field was not a few con¬ 
temporary peoples, but the whole race. Not only 
contemporary, but for all the ages of ages. Not 
only for those still on earth, but also for those who 
had passed into the spirit world before His day, 
those to whom He hastened to preach after His 
physical death. It is clearly seen that His sphere 
was vastly wider than these notable economists. 
This in itself would differentiate His mode from 
theirs. In His mode He was more in line with the 
best philosophers. But philosophy was idealistic 
only; while Christ had authority. If Christ had 
the highest idealistic philosophy, and at the same 
time authority, whence His failure? We must 
confess also, though, that neither the laws of these 
splendid statesmen, nor the dreams of the idealist 
philosophers, brought much abiding purity to the 
soul of man. 

If we open our mental eyes wide enough to take 
in the larger vision of a dream of super-men, of 
super-souls, we shall find that Christ’s mode was 
the only one which could unite both, for all time, 
and amongst all peoples. So His Father, Who is 
in Heaven, sent Him out into this sphere of action 
with this one eternal purpose before Him, to save 
the people from their sins, and to establish a new 
Kingdom, and it was to be in the hearts of men. 
It was to be the day of grace, not a punitive dis¬ 
ciplinary work, but a renewing of the image of God 


230 


Which Temple Ye Are 


in the heart; thus re-erecting a hidden holy shrine 
in each soul where the fires of cleansing shall always 
be burning. A crucible of the soul, where its 
volition shall be ever purified from dross, and 
ever strengthened to aspire Godward. Wherein is 
made possible a glorified form of reversion to type, 
an atavism to the idealism and obedience of the 
Morning in Eden of our race. Alas, that this 
divine dreamlike dawn of love so soon passed 
away; and in its place came the glare of a lurid, 
threatening, long-drawn day of hate, greed, blood¬ 
shed, and all classes of appalling crimes. Disobedi¬ 
ence seems a small failing, but it has for its horrid 
brood all the incarnated demonism which has given 
us little but horror in the reading of the history 
of our race. Take any condensed history of our 
race, and its interest is almost wholly kept up by 
regaling us with an account of how this conqueror 
overcame that weaker one, and how many men 
were slain in this unholy action. Oh! the history 
of our race is a horrible gory tale of hate and 
avarice! 

And so we see it that Christ was sent to draw 
the race back to its first state of innocency, when 
the Father said He saw that His creation was good. 
I think that perhaps our race is to be brought by a 
very long path up to Eternal Perfection. I think 
that perhaps this world is a sort of school in which 
we learn the utter folly of these suicidal, selfish 
instincts. I think that our civilized peoples are 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 231 


beginning to conceive the idea that Christ’s regime 
might after all be worth adopting from a purely 
human common-sense standpoint. Wholly blind, 
and partly blind, persons stand obstinately in 
the path of this divine impulse. But Christ was 
sent by the Father to accomplish a splendid ideal 
within the Soul of our Race. The Father also gave 
Him all authority to bring it about by a certain 
time. We cannot hinder its coming, but we can by 
misusing our volition work constantly against His 
coming Kingdom to our own infinite loss. Every 
man can, I believe, keep holiness out of his own 
heart, at least for a time. But we should all be 
more unscientific than our age warrants if we did so. 
We cannot push back the high tide no matter how 
we throw our puny might against it; but we may 
be dashed against the rocks, or be sunken ignomini- 
ously in the oblivion of its vast depths. And the 
loss would he our own. The Kingdom is coming 
quickly, and may be clearly seen in outlines now 
by the observant and discerning spirit of a man. 
When it shall have fully come, we shall have 
attained to be Sons of God, joint heirs with Christ, 
Temples fit for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

To this ideal must we each of us aim, no matter 
how humble or simple we be; for it is the city of 
those who are like little children, simple, obedient, 
innocent. We have, in a previous chapter, said in 
regard to this personal aim towards the Kingdom, 
and our duty regarding its furtherance as individ- 


232 


Which Temple Ye Are 


uals thus, Duty is ever calling us to service. She is 
that inner voice which strives to weave out from 
our talents, culture, and circumstances, a path for 
the conscious will to exert its volition over our 
rather unwilling minds and bodies. Sometimes 
she lashes us with a scourge of cords, at times sug¬ 
gests, persuades, or pitifully entreats us to rise to 
our privilege of service. This so noble privilege— 
service for the children—is, shall we say, the soul's 
food. The starving soul pitifully entreats us to 
work for our own, its own, security. It lashes us 
on—if we be awake—to do that thing for the com¬ 
mon good that we alone are called upon by God to 
do. This call comes to all real souls. As we are 
to aim at becoming more like little children we 
shall at first try to find a few first principles on 
which we may begin our service. So first, we 
should strive with all our hearts to escape from the 
thraldom of party politics, schools of thought, 
or sectarianism in religious matters. We must 
agree to disagree in these minor matters as we can¬ 
not hope to see alike in anything where the mind of 
man plays so prominent a part as it does in these 
partyisms. But we can and must learn to differ¬ 
entiate between that which is aiming towards the 
removal of all wickedness amongst us, and that 
which is strong to retain it; that which is bringing 
the minds and souls of men together in the happy 
bonds of an eternal brotherhood, and that which 
fosters hatred and distrust. A little child knows 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 233 


right well when he is selfish and disobedient to his 
parents’ commands. Surely we may know as 
much. 

It seems to be a law of our bodies that proper 
exercise of a part strengthens that part for still 
further capabilities. And so with the mind. At 
our schools, much is taught because it is calculated 
to give strength to the intellect rather than be¬ 
cause the subject is useful per se; notably, Higher 
Mathematics, which so few are called upon to make 
use of after school days. And so, if we use our 
simple knowledge of what is right and what is 
wrong, and implicitly obey its dictum, we shall 
grow stronger in our vision of what really is right 
and what really is wrong. And the many small 
right acts of many simple folk make a splendid 
showing at times. Perhaps a little child can be 
a comfort to her mother by her dear prattle 
and sweet obedience, thereby giving that mother 
courage to do greater service; or perchance the 
mother can in turn encourage some soul who is 
called to do a seemingly greater or more public 
work. Nothing in life is small unless isolated 
from the whole. 

We see it that it is the will of God the Creator 
that our men be for the most part the public 
workers. Through the nature of our physical 
life, through the circumstances of motherhood, we 
may see it to be impossible to arrange it otherwise. 
A childless woman finds her vocation where she 


234 


Which Temple Ye Are 


can, by God’s providence. But in the call to a 
nation to rise to its privilege of service for Christ 
and His Kingdom, the importance of motherhood 
stands pre-eminently first of all classes of humanity. 
Certainly, since she it is who rears the coming men 
for the coming battles, and the coming daughters to 
be the coming mothers of the succeeding generation. 
I am aware that some classes of women despise this 
doctrine, but that does not injure its soundness. 
See how anxious our Roman Catholic friends are 
to have the training of the young children. Not 
all the armies and navies in the world can do for 
the universal peace and goodwill on earth what one 
generation of wise and holy mothers can do. Show 
me a man who has accomplished great things, 
good or ill, and you shall also show me one, with 
perhaps rare exceptions, who has had either a good, 
wise, woman as counsellor, or a crafty, bad, woman 
to influence him. History teems with illustrations 
of this fact. A womanhood out of her own sphere 
and in manhood’s sphere would give us a nation 
of women who were mere burlesques, and men who 
were almost nonentities; a state of things to make 
angels weep in pity, and demons smile victoriously. 
Women, who by the providence of God have not 
been granted this sacred privilege, motherhood, 
still may find work in plenty which is of the 
motherly type of service, viz.: care and instruction 
of the growing body, and mind, and spirit, of our 
little ones; and care and service to any suffering 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 235 


and needy brothers and sisters who are less for¬ 
tunate than themselves. This idea, worked out in 
all its bearings, touches deeply social problems of 
labour and of every kind. After all there is no 
object of moment on earth excepting the creature 
man, who was made in the image of God; and 
who has fallen into that which seems at times much 
more like the image of the evil one. We who are 
expected to become temples suitable for the abiding 
place of the Holy Spirit are of the gravest import¬ 
ance. And woman, it seems, seldom recognizes 
the gravity of her mission, in the fitting and pre¬ 
paring of the human race for so splendid an 
accomplishment. And so we see it to be a grave 
responsibility to bear and train sons and daughters 
for this divine sonship of the eternal future; where 
sons or daughters may not be distinguished by 
sex, where there is no marriage or giving in marriage. 
Let us therefore use it in a sacred manner, and in 
no way despise or belittle or degrade its grand 
mission. But alas, outside of the marriage of 
moral persons who respect themselves and their 
vows; and outside of those who are unmarried, 
and also respect themselves, marriage, and purity 
of life; I say outside of that state of morality which 
these exceptions loosely cover, what do we find? 
I shall not attempt to particularize on this so 
loathsome topic. It is like some infernal, filthy, 
ghoulish nightmare. The satanic traffic known as 
white slavery is being slowly uncovered. The 


236 


Which Temple Ye Are 


divorce courts are slowly uncovering another phase 
of this filthy nightmare. The daily newspapers 
enlighten us too well on this miserable topic, and 
the large percentage of illegitimacy in the statistics 
tells its own tale of shame. There is a noble 
cleanly mission for our women in this field; first, 
with the mothers who train our sons and daughters; 
then, with that noble army of women workers who 
are already giving of their wealth, or time, or both, 
to the caring for the fallen, the rescuing of the 
almost fallen, and the training of the minds of the 
people in the ways of real purity. May God give 
courage and assistance to these women who are, 
shall I say, almost the greater mothers of our people. 
But the inviolate purity of our sons and daughters 
rests in the atmosphere of that blessed sanctuary 
of the tempted one—the home. The women who 
are fashioned like to the Spartan mothers are of 
more value economically to a nation than a thou¬ 
sand times the number of females who are of that 
travestied type of womanhood, the Amazons. I 
do not assert about women inferiority to men, but 
I do claim that it is a suicidal, a perverted instinct, 
that leads many of our women to desire to usurp 
the man’s place. It is suicidal in three ways: 
It is a serious injury to the pre-natal conditions of 
our children that mothers should be filled with the 
excitement, and often hatred, of party strife; and 
that nursing children should be nourished on the 
poisoned milk of anger and excitement, instead of 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 237 


kindness and peace; and that these children should 
become accustomed in their daily life to hearing the 
party jargon of illogical and often quite unbalanced 
prejudiced party quarrel. Like parents , like chil¬ 
dren. But if the mother has righteousness, 
human kindness, and a calm, peaceful sense of 
security in God’s goodness, that all wrongs will be 
righted soon by the grace of God, and trains her 
sons and daughters to hope and expect the same, 
and instils in their very souls a desire for this holy 
national atmosphere, would not this be better 
economically for our country? Like parents , like 
children. An angel might covet the privilege of a 
woman when she, like our loved Spartan mothers, 
rears her sons for the battle of life, not merely the 
battle of the getting of bread, but the getting of 
righteousness on the earth; when she rears her 
daughters, not merely to fill a good social position, 
but to feel responsibility as an assisting, nay 
training, influence of the individual souls of a 
great people. She, like these ancient noble women 
will hand to them the shield for the battle of life, 
and say with them, “With it, or upon it!” 

The battle is fierce and the struggle is intense. 
Righteousness is not for the weak, nor is victory 
to the careless and indifferent. Every day, every 
act, is pregnant either with destroying influence, or 
reconstructing inspiration, towards the city of the 
risen Christ, a city wherein no evil dwells. Oh, 
it is a time for true men to be wise as well as brave 


238 


Which Temple Ye Are 


and strong. Oh, it is high wisdom when the battle 
is raging the most fiercely to look for a moment far 
away into the long future which we all hope for, 
and try to catch a ray of that divine inspiration 
which has so long been the stay and strength 
of the saints of God. This patience, or better, 
stedfastness, of which we read so frequently in our 
instructive Scriptures, is our great need. We must 
be wise to see what is taking place, we must watch. 
We must learn “what God is like.” “And in 
the darkest battle-field we shall know where to 
strike.” “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit 
you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be 
done in love.” This text is so rich and full of 
meaning that we could wish it were engraved on 
the inner spirit of every one who professes the 
Faith as it is in Christ Jesus. We are inclined to 
sympathize with the old philosopher who went 
about searching for a man. Was there ever a time 
when the nation needed real men more than to-day? 
And, thank God, I think that even the old philo¬ 
sopher, with his lantern and his cynicism, would 
find a few wise and valiant souls to-day whom we 
may think of as real men, and whom we must con¬ 
fess are quitting themselves as such. We are in 
grave need of citizens ready to support in every 
possible way those who are trying to bring about 
righteousness in our nation. There is occasion 
here for wisdom and valour. This is the separat¬ 
ing time, the time when righteousness is to be 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 239 


separated from wickedness. It is wise to fight 
on the eternally winning side. To do otherwise 
is to perish foolishly. God says, 

“ And I will punish the world for their evil, and the 
wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arro- 
gancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the 
haughtiness of the terrible. I will make man more 
rare than fine gold, even a man than the pure gold 
of Ophir.” 

If a real man is rare, where shall we find him? 
But we were not told what his social position in life 
was to be, and how shall we know a real man when 
we see one? I should say that we could only know 
him by his conformity to type , and not from his 
social position. God made our first parents in His 
Own image, and He pronounced them to be good. 

Long after our first parents fell into the sinful 
state, God, shall I say, projected another perfect 
creation in the image of God, Jesus Christ. The 
first Adam was ignorant, we must see it, of the 
consequences of disobedience to God’s voice. So 
he fell and dragged the race down with him. Like 
parents , like children. After long experience, of 
some effort upwards, and much falling downwards, 
God sent His Perfect One, in order that we might 
have a chance once more to conform to type. Adam 
had the appalling power of giving the seed of 
mortality to his offspring. The Perfect One was 
given the divine power of drawing us upwards 


240 


Which Temple Ye Are 


towards our original sinlessness and innocence and 
immortality. But we have eaten of the tree of 
knowledge of Good and Evil. This we cannot 
undo. And neither could, nor did, the Perfect One 
undo it in Himself or in us. So, in Adam we were 
a perfect type, but ignorant of good and evil. 
So, in Christ, we must be brought back to con¬ 
formity to type , not in our ignorance, but in full 
knowledge of good and evil, with Adam’s gained 
knowledge augmented by the experience of thou¬ 
sands of years of miserable failure as sinners. Then 
fully knowing right from wrong we shall by our 
obedience to the word of God, and by closing the 
ear to Satan, revert to type. We have Christ to 
conform to. 

“ For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be 
made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the 
first-fruits; then they that are Christ’s, at his coming. 
Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the 
kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have 
abolished all rule and all authority and power.” 

This quotation is to me a sort of “clearing-house” 
of our faith. A place wherein all efforts are adjudi¬ 
cated and balanced. Are we making headway 
towards our type, or are we to-day at a loss? In 
Adam we disobey, we fall, we die. In Christ we 
obey, we rise, we live. Do our deeds accord with 
our faith? If so, we are beginning to live; if not, 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 241 


we are still dying. It is in this matter of deeds 
that our knowledge of what is good and what is 
evil is called into requisition. The more we know 
the more culpable we are in being disobedient; 
the more satisfactory it will be for us if we are 
obedient to the reverting order. So we find the 
battle-field to be the ground between right and 
wrong; and not between partyisms of any sort. 
He who strives to fill in this battle-ground with 
paltry and selfish partyisms reminds us of our 
friends the Thibetans, who, we are told, were 
accustomed to throw evil-smelling objects at the 
unwelcome intruder. Party ism can be, and is, 
very offensive; but is mostly petty and futile in 
its fighting qualities. It is of little use in the 
great struggle between right and wrong, but is a 
powerful factor in preventing the clearer vision of 
a people; a vision which would result in the full 
acknowledgment that God is Right, and therefore 
Right must win, and that it is the greatest of 
human privileges to stand firm on God’s side in 
this fiercely active battle which is raging to-day 
in our State. And it is according to how we quit 
ourselves in this crucial day, that we shall be 
known to be utter failures, or real men and women , 
acting nobly in the strife. 

We have been emphasizing the deep and vital 
importance of motherhood, perhaps the more 
because we see, even in most estimable mothers, a 
tendency to think of the life of the woman in the 


242 


Which Temple Ye Are 


home as being rather a sort of inferior position to 
men, or to women who have greater publicity. 
I pray that this will speedily be seen to be a mis¬ 
taken idea, born of her God-given instinct to desire 
to do something towards the bringing of our people 
back to the type of our Image, a state for which our 
Mother Eve is principally responsible. But she 
should do her work as Eve did hers, with this 
difference; Eve was ignorant of the importance of 
her deed, woman to-day is not. So, to-day woman 
has the joy of knowing that by her helpful influence 
shall we all be able to conform to our original type, 
if she be obedient to Christ, and thus becomes 
endowed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

The average man has a call to bravery that 
perhaps few realize. His position is the counter¬ 
part of the woman’s. Hers the motherhood, his 
the fatherhood; hers the monotonous routine of the 
average home, his the monotonous routine of the 
average business life. While the physical law of 
being does not demand so great personal care from 
the father as from the mother, still he does, or 
should, dominate the whole family life. He is not 
only father of his own children, but he is father, 
good or evil, to all young persons who come within 
the radius of his influence. How often we see 
young sons watch to see what their father does, 
says, and thinks. He is moulding their young 
impressible minds, whether he wishes to or not. 
And youths with whom he comes in contact; how 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 243 


often we may observe the influence of an employer 
taking effect. A modem business man is in many 
instances a person of appalling responsibility. 
Take one of our large establishments where great 
numbers of young men and women are employed, 
and sift out this employer’s influence for good or 
evil, and in some known instances it is truly dis¬ 
couraging. We have so much of the evil of this 
herding together of the young men and women 
brought to the surface, that we shall not attempt 
to do more than to draw attention to its danger. 
Loneliness, want of means to live as they should 
be able to live, gradual breaking down of high 
moral standards between the sexes, temptation 
towards dishonesty, etc., all tend to destroy, or at 
least disfigure, the Image of God in our young. 
Every employer is, from the larger vision, father 
to all his employees. If he be a true manly man, 
he will struggle to keep his young men and women 
pure and honest. The dishonesty of the commer¬ 
cial world is so firmly fixed in the modern mind, 
that we do not much expect to find true fairness in 
business dealing. And yet we may scarcely ascribe 
this evil to modern life only, as the writer of the 
apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus says, “Two 
sorts of callings have appeared to me hard and 
dangerous; a merchant shall hardly keep himself 
from doing wrong; and a huckster shall not be 
freed from the sin of his lips.” It is indeed hard 
not to do wrong in commercial affairs, and not to 


244 


Which Temple Ye Are 


sin with the lips when offering various goods for 
sale. If a man is trained to absolute integrity 
in his home, he has a fierce fight before him, to 
keep that priceless quality inviolate in the business 
life which lies before the average business man. 
It would seem easier for the mechanic and agri¬ 
culturist to be straightforward, as there seems to 
be less temptation, unless it is in the making of 
inferior or “shoddy” articles of the former, and 
the petty tricky dishonesties of the latter. But 
we oftener, I think, find character and thought¬ 
fulness in the average mechanic and agriculturist 
(classing loosely) than in the buyer and seller; 
perhaps only because temptation is so much less. 
But he who finds himself in the most dangerous 
post of the battle-field must be the braver and wiser; 
that is all that is left for him to do. There is, 
hurrying along, a movement towards this purifica¬ 
tion in the matter of purity of products, and of 
buying and selling of the necessities of life. The 
earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, and the 
Lord will not for long allow to continue these 
adulterations of foods, and dishonest trickery in 
all phases of commerce, which now obtains. We 
thank God from our very inner hearts for any 
real exceptions to these accusations. That some 
are attempting to clean up these Augean stables 
we all know; and this gives hope to our, sometimes, 
almost hopeless souls. The poor man is often 
expected to do that from which his spirit revolts— 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 245 


but he must have bread for his family. It is not 
so difficult to conceive why “labour agitators” 
are as a rule so often in a “paroxysm of rage” at 
the state of things which now obtains amongst us. 
But wise clean-cut work is even better; though 
many of us find ourselves in a mental state of this 
raging character when we see so much that could 
be remedied if men were only a trifle more just, 
and a trifle more brave, in their endeavours to 
help to bring righteousness on the face of the 
earth, instead of more wealth into their already 
overfat bank accounts. 

On the weak foolishness of this great mass, the 
average citizen, lives the, so-termed, professional 
class. We must all agree that all our professional 
men largely live on the foolishness of the mass. 
The transfer of property and kindred transactions 
would be but poor faring for all the lawyers who 
we know are now usually making fat livings in our 
State. If people were righteous and just in their 
dealings with one another, how their vintage would 
fail, especially if we held all property in common, 
as did the early Christians. So we cannot hope 
for that profession, excepting a few brave ones, 
to help much towards Peace on Earth, Goodwill 
towards men, can we? It is unreasonable to 
expect it. 

The medical profession certainly lives mainly on 
the arrant foolishness of the common mass, on the 
one side, and the inability of the Church to heal 


246 


Which Temple Ye Are 


the sick, on the other. Every vice, no matter of 
what class, seems incidentally to give the physician 
employment. The useless, luxurious life which the 
idle rich live, and the unemployed, squalid life 
which the idle poor live, tend alike to sickness, 
accident, and disease. Our unnatural mode of 
eating affords still more work for them. Some 
of us eat food that is too rich or is unsuitable; some 
of us eat too little food of any kind: we cannot get 
it to eat. We have also become a flesh-gorging 
people, a sort of polite type of carnivora, which we 
were never made to become, without punitive 
results. God said to Adam at the dawn of our 
day when all was fair and lovely, “Behold, I have 
given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon 
the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is 
the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be 
for food.” Then follows that He had also given 
it to the beasts to eat. And God saw that it was 
very good. Then, after that, came the Fall, 
through ignorant disobedience; and the earth 
became filled with violence. And after that, He 
told them they could eat the flesh of beasts and 
fish and fowls for food, with the exception of the 
blood, which is the life. We may presume the 
case that these violent peoples had taken to eating 
uncooked gory flesh. I shall leave this field of 
service to our much respected friends, the Food 
Reformers, who are doing so much to purify the 
bodies and minds of our people by calling grave 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 247 


attention to our foods. Personally, I see it to be 
scriptural that when we become conformed to 
type, and back to the stature of our Image, as it 
was in Eden’s dawn, we shall abhor the cruelty 
and gore of the shambles; as we are not by nature 
carnivora, even the lion shall yet eat straw like 
the ox. I think that at times God gives us licence 
to take plenty of some evil thing that we desire, 
in order to teach us lessons. And we learn at 
great cost often, as did the wanderers of the wilder¬ 
ness with their lust for flesh. But we must not 
look to our average physicians to assist in food or 
other kindred reforms. If we could each and all 
labour comfortably, and eat wisely, of the purest 
of foods, we should, I am much afraid, seriously 
injure their calling. I have no word of censure for 
the physician who spends his very existence in 
a kindly endeavour to remove the sickness and 
suffering of the people; and we must as yet be 
thankful for his timely aid. Still, we should not 
expect to find the profession of law or medicine in 
much prominence in the Holy City on Earth, when 
it arrives, a city wherein there is not pain or 
crying or any evil thing. And we must needs, I 
presume, consider the position of the officer in our 
Army and Navy as that of a profession. While we 
grant that until Christ be formed within us we can 
do better cleansing work within our State while 
well guarded from encroachment from without, yet 
it almost touches our sense of humour to think 


248 Which Temple Ye Are 

of having officers of the army and navy strutting 
proudly about in the Holy City. The training of 
our young to kill one another cleverly , we can 
scarcely conceive of as being an occupation fitting 
for the inhabitants of this so peaceful an abiding 
place. We should, we think, be very appreciative 
of all those men who are learned in valuable know¬ 
ledge of all sorts in this redeemed State to be. We 
should expect no opposition to true progress from 
learned men of all classes, who are without special, 
selfish interests at stake , in this reconstructing labour 
towards our highest possibilities as mankind. And 
the profession of the clergy in our State! Is it in 
its entirety and without doubt earnestly engaged 
in taking the Kingdom of Heaven by violence; 
or is it indifferently acquiescing in a miscarriage 
of the teaching and commands of Christ? There 
are many reasons that contribute to this grave 
hindrance to our religious life; this falseness of 
our spiritual guides, which is so prevalent and so 
disastrous. First, and pre-eminently foremost, is 
the fact that so large a percentage of men go 
into the “Church” as they go into the other 
professions, merely as a vocation that will bring 
them means to live upon, and at the same time 
secure them a good social position. Certainly, 
many will have mental qualities suitable for their 
calling, but one has only to attend many of the 
smaller parish churches to find utter inadequacy 
for so responsible a position. In Nonconformity 


“ Quit You Like Men, Be Strong’’ 249 


the average mental quality seems to be much 
higher, perhaps because this class is largely drawn 
from a stronger phase of our race, “the middle 
class, ” and also from the circumstances of call to 
the vocation. There must be at least some ability 
in a man or he will soon become a shepherd without 
sheep in Nonconformity. I am not aware that 
the State Church demands what we may call 
“conversion” in its incumbent; nor perhaps does 
Nonconformity make a testing point of it to-day. 
Certainly all of both classes are accepted as 
Christians in belief; but not in a way that will 
closely and searchingly differentiate between men, 
who being nominal Christians feel inclined to 
preach the doctrine of some particular sect, and 
men, who being cleansed by the purifying fires of 
repentance and also filled with the Holy Spirit, 
are called by the commanding voice of God to 
preach the Evangel of Jesus the Redeemer of men. 
If all our preachers were to try themselves, each 
his own soul, by this test, as being fit or unfit 
for the vocation of the ministry of the Word, I fear 
that there would be a most alarming and significant 
evacuation of our pulpits, of all persuasions: and 
we also feel assured, that next Lord’s Day morning 
a goodly sprinkling would still be found meekly 
and firmly standing in their accustomed places, still 
ready to preach the word with at least a little power. 
These few , of whom we have before been speaking, 
are our hope. If these few , be they Churchmen or 


250 


Which Temple Ye Are 


Nonconformists, will but watch, stand fast, and 
quit them like strong men, and do all in a spirit of 
love, what an awakening we shall have. And this 
must come or else we are a lost race. 

To an irresponsible aristocracy, or to the degen¬ 
erate driftwood of our people, it is well nigh use¬ 
less to appeal; but to all other classes of our sons 
and daughters, in the name of my Saviour, do I 
appeal to you to decide this day whom ye will 
serve. If ye consent that God it is Whom ye will 
serve, then I appeal to you, no matter whether you 
be in high or low position, to consider yourselves 
from a new standpoint. Ye must be born anew 
(or from above) in order to be able to serve God 
this day; this day of fiercest conflict between right 
and wrong, the two opposing influences which 
respectively lead to our reconstruction or our 
destruction. And so do I cry out my appeal to us 
all, every man, woman, and child, to listen with 
his inner ear for the call of God the Father and 
Creator, to do each his own duty, his own service 
to a sin-sick world. And I feel no reluctance in 
saying that the appeal that I cry to us all is from 
the Spirit of Truth which is sent forth amongst 
us by that Christ Who came to save the people 
from their sins. I feel that I can say with Him, 
and without irreverence, “Believe me for the very 
work’s sake,” for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. 

The Kingdom is within the heart, and is acquired 
by violence to our old methods, aims, and habits. 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 251 


When heaven is within each of us it will also be a 
visibly outward kingdom; who could see it other¬ 
wise ? Then it is obviously our first duty to repent, 
and clean each his own mind and heart; and lift 
his own standpoint of life up into an eternal futurity 
and then work as the world never saw men work before. 
And our work will be varied according to our call. 
Our call will be according to our vision. Our 
vision will come to us by the circumstances of our 
birth, training, environment, culture, or lack of 
culture; but each in his own place, doing his own 
work. We do not erect monuments to soldiers who 
die of shots in the back. The humblest private is 
expected to stand the fire of the enemy. We can 
learn a good lesson from these disciplined men, and 
“stand like the brave with our face to the foe,” 
no matter what form the foe may assume. And 
no child is too young to begin to learn Right from 
Wrong—after he is once aware of himself as a 
human entity. No man or woman is too obscure 
or ignorant for this noble service; as has many a 
time been illustrated by work thus accomplished. 
The victory is sometimes to the weak and foolish. 
But how vastly greater may be, and is, the influ¬ 
ence of those who are splendidly equipped, as 
some of our leading spirits are. And what excel¬ 
lent service many of them are now doing. May 
God give them skill to know just “where to strike.” 
All work is honourable if it be righteous service; 
and no two can do precisely the same thing. But 


252 


Which Temple Ye Are 


each accordingly as he is called of God. “Now 
he that planteth and he that watereth are one; 
but each shall receive his own reward according 
to his own labour. For we are God’s fellow- 
workers; ye are God’s husbandry, God’s building.’’ 
This should give us that stedfastness which will 
enable us, from greatest to least, to stand firm 
and quit us like real men, made in the image of 
God, and made, not for suicidal selfishness, but for 
eternally self-preserving service for the souls of 
men. 

“ But it is to you, ye workers, who do already work, 
and are as grown men, noble and honorable in a sort, 
that the whole world calls for new work and nobleness. 
Subdue mutiny, discord, widespread despair, by 
manfulness, justice, mercy, and wisdom. Chaos is 
dark, deep as hell; let light be, and there is instead 
a green flowery world. Oh, it is great, and there is 
no other greatness. To make some nook of God’s 
creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of 
God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, man- 
fuller, happier, more blessed, less accursed! It is 
work for a God. . . . Unstained by wasteful 
deformities, by wasted tears, or hearts-blood of men, 
or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitful labour, 
growing ever nobler, will come forth—the grand sole 
miracle of man; whereby man has risen from the 
low places of this earth, very literally into divine 
heavens. ... All martyrs, and noble men and 
gods are of one grand host, immeasurable: marching 
ever forward since the beginnings of the world. The 


“Quit You Like Men, Be Strong” 253 


enormous, all-conquering, flame-crowned Host, noble 
every soldier in it; sacred and alone noble. Let him 
who is not of it hide himself; let him tremble for 
himself.’’ 


Carlyle. 


CHAPTER XII 


“behold the man” 


“And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When there¬ 
fore the chief priests and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, 
Crucify him, crucify him! Pilate saith unto them, Take him 
yourselves, and crucify him: for I find no crime in him.” 


John xix. 5, 6. 


“And when they came unto the place which is called Calvary, 
there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right 
hand and the other on the left hand. And Jesus said, Father 
forgive them; for they know not what they do. ” 


Luke xxiii. 33, 34. 


“For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted 
of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 
and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to 
come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again 
unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God 
afresh, and put Him to an open shame. ” Hebrews vi. 4. 

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
myself. John xii. 32. 



OD has painted us in the Scriptures, general 


history, and in human life, as we find it 
to-day, a picture that requires more than a hurried 
glance or a microscopic examination of one tiny 
detached portion in order that we may see, even 


254 


“ Behold the Man ” 


255 


dimly, some of its (I believe) extraordinary wise 
design, and incomparable beauty of workmanship, 
and eternally satisfying inspiration for a soul’s 
attainment Godward. In looking upon this vast 
and seemingly awful picture, we do not always 
feel satisfied that God the Creator was justified in 
pronouncing His work of creation to be good. We 
often inwardly feel rebellious; and some of us 
confess it with our lips or pen. Unbelievers are 
not slow to belittle the management of mankind— 
as they see it. Professing Christians, of the very 
prevalent nominal sort, say as little as they can on 
the subject, not wishing to bring the Faith, as they 
see it, into disrepute; and feeling that they can¬ 
not adequately reason away this seeming mis¬ 
management of the race by the Creator. The Few , 
who are, shall we say, illumined by the Spirit of 
God sufficiently to appreciate the various workings 
of Providence in affairs that they can in a measure 
understand, feel that they actually know by certain 
of the scientific laws of analogy, etc., as applied to 
this particular theme, that the Creator is sure as 
life itself to have some greater, more magnificent 
scheme, wherein this short earth-season is but the 
broken chord of a glorious processional, wherein 
the whole design shall not only satisfy our pitifully 
doubting souls, but will also fill us eternally with 
holy awe and unspeakable joy of being. This 
smaller and knowable sketch we may perhaps find 
to be a prophetic sketch of the whole grand vista 


256 


Which Temple Ye Are 


of long, and continued, and now unknowable, his- 
tory of our race. 

Souls who realize this, feel that Job was wise 
when he said in the midst of his calamities, 
“Though he slay me, yet will I wait for him.” 
Though in sad complaint he still further moans 
out his misery to his well meaning tormentors, 

“Oh, that I knew where I might find him! That I 
might come even to his seat. . . . Behold I go 
forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I 
cannot perceive him; on the left hand, when he doeth 
work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on 
the right hand, that I cannot see him. But he know- 
eth the way that I take; when he hath tried me, I shall 
come forth as gold.” 

Poor afflicted Job in his anguish of body and 
mind still continued to pour forth his lament until 
at length Jehovah Himself answered him, and in 
such a way that this rather self-righteous sufferer 
was silenced. Then Jehovah counselled Job thus, 
“Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will de¬ 
mand of thee, and declare thou unto me.” “Wilt 
thou even annul my judgment? Wilt thou con¬ 
demn me, that thou mayest be justified?” At 
length Job’s pride and blindness were conquered, 
and once more he addressed himself to Jehovah 
thus, “I know that thou canst do all things, and 
that no purpose of thine can be restrained. Who is 
this that hideth counsel without knowledge? 


“ Behold the Man ” 


257 


Therefore have I uttered that which I understood 
not. . . . Wherefore I loathe my words and 
repent in dust and ashes.” And this weird tale 
of soul agony ends by telling us that Jehovah 
blessed the latter end of Job more than his begin¬ 
ning. At least some lessons are to be learnt from 
the significant experience of this historic character. 
We find that he suffered because he was righteous, 
not because he was wicked. We find that he suffered 
a short while with God’s full consent, to testify 
to Satan that his integrity was real and strong 
enough to withstand temptation. It leaves us a 
most convincing, although pre-eminently poetical, 
illustration of how entirely dependent we are on 
God’s care, and how nothing of His will can mis¬ 
carry, and yet leaves us a clear vision of how 
important the soul of a man is in God’s, and even 
Satan’s sight. That soul’s Will to do right, though 
all help and opportunity seems to fail—that this 
will sooner or later result in the consciousness of 
God’s approval, and will secure a happier future 
for the stedfast trusting soul, is perhaps the widest, 
the most significant lesson to be appreciated in its 
study. It seems to be a key by which we may open 
the door of our hopes on a wider vista of happier 
experiences. We must see it that there is no lesson 
that we need for to-day’s requirements so much as 
we do this gift of the wider vision, this vision that 
sees to-day as a moment of an eternal day. A 
moment only perhaps, but it might by God’s 


17 


258 


Which Temple Ye Are 


infinite wisdom be a moment of vast issues, as 
some moments are in times of crises; and we may 
well see that it is thus so to-day, if we be not blind 
to contemporary history. Job was commanded by 
God to gird up his loins now like a man. Perhaps 
our season of loss and misery and sores of horrible 
loathsomeness is about to be lifted by the Provi¬ 
dence of God. “Perhaps,” we said. Better it 
were to affirm that by the grace of God and His 
unfailing promises, it shall be. When Job was 
tested sufficiently, and was found to be still trust¬ 
ing in his God, his misery was removed. He 
repented of his self-righteousness, he loathed his 
foolishness, and he prayed that his tormenting 
Pharisaical friends might also be restored from 
their folly. 

Perhaps there is nothing so remarkable in human 
history as our attempted allegiance to God, or 
what each individual and people conceive to be 
God. All people, no matter how barbaric and 
crude they may be in their customs, have some 
idea of appeasing or beseeching favour from some 
Influence which we know means God. And there 
is a strong likeness in primitive conceptions of 
God. We do not know whether or no there exists 
infidelity in these primitively religious peoples or 
not. We should judge not much. We think that 
infidelity is more prevalent in our Christendom 
than in any other cultus. If this is true—and 
there is abounding circumstantial evidence that it 


“ Behold the Man ” 


259 


is true—why is this? I think that the secret of it 
lies between two phases of our world spirit to-day; 
on the one hand we see the seeming miscarriage 
of God’s scheme at the dawn of Eden; and on the 
other we do not see that this initial experience may 
be but a moment of discord in an eternal harmony. 
If we see Man’s fall apart from the design of the 
Creator, we must, if we be honest, see it to be 
absolute failure of the Creator’s plans. From our 
lessons of Job’s troubles we should learn that, God 
the Creator does use Satan to test the courage and 
sincerity of humanity. But modem culture says, 
God cannot permit evil. Jehovah God Himself 
says, “I form the light, and create darkness; I 
make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah that 
doeth all these things.” Shall we dictate to our 
Maker as to just which experience He shall give 
each of us? Shall we strive with our Maker as 
to His methods with us? 

If this life ended all existence, it were indeed a 
failure, but we have hope of everlasting life, which 
alters the case entirely. We ought to see this more 
plainly. God’s methods do not require apology; 
but they do require that we try to understand His 
standpoint a little more nearly; so that we may be 
willing creatures in His moving scheme. We are 
first to be born anew from above , and then to go on 
from perfection unto perfection. After we fell, 
through our ignorance, into the temptation of 
Satan, our Creator promised that in due time He 


260 


Which Temple Ye Are 


would send one of us out into this sin-sick world 
who should restore the fallen race. We of the 
Christian Faith feel assured that such an One 
came, and He came at the time that was foretold. 
Some say that His mission failed; but that also 
rises from the shorter vision. It was at a still later 
date that these earthly kingdoms were to become 
the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. This 
has not yet taken place. This it is to which the 
world is ripening fast. This it is for which we 
hope, and pray, and work, if we be embryo Sons 
of God. 

This perfect Son of God was, as we have said, 
projected amongst us as was foretold, in order that 
we might once more have a perfected Image of God 
to look upon until we become like Him. But not 
for this alone; since He also taught us the gravest 
of all lessons, and the bitterest—the sacrifice of 
ourselves for others. Not only are we indebted 
to Him for the showing forth of these saving 
qualities, but He was given full authority over the 
souls of our race. There is nothing to-day so 
important to human existence as our vision of this 
Christ of God. All the great Scripture artists have 
depicted His appearance. All the prophet-poets 
have sung in sorrowful pathos of His weary 
lingering way to His final triumphant victory over 
sin and death; and have also sung in joyful strain 
of the happier finish of this so sorrowful a journey. 
These artists and prophet-poets have given us a 


“ Behold the Man ” 


261 


perfect picture of a perfect man doing a perfect 
work for a perfect Father God, and for, I firmly 
believe, a yet to be perfect race. As by our inex¬ 
perienced forefathers we fell into sin, and by sin 
death, so by Him Who gave Himself in perfect 
manner for us shall we live and grow from perfec¬ 
tion unto perfection in His perfectness. 

All history, whether it be scriptural or otherwise, 
ancient or contemporary, points to our fallen state, 
and calls for a return to sane obedience. The 
Voice of the Creator has re-instructed us in the 
giving forth of His Son. The sin-sick world is 
to-day, in all its theologies, schools, systems of 
social reform, and scientific reconstruction of our 
race as human beings in the individual, also 
pointing to this Fall; and yet they do not point too 
readily to the one remedy for all our ills. We 
think that presently, all these schools that are 
vaguely feeling out after the coming Kingdom and 
its Hero Sovereign, will awaken and look around, 
taking in the larger vista, taking in their vision 
the eternal process, seeing the Lord Christ as 
centre of all hopes, aims, and aspirations; that 
they and all will soon with one united voice cry 
out to a weary world, “Behold the Man.” Ecce 
Homo is the name given to many conceptions of 
Jesus Christ by our medieval and more modern 
artists. 

Ecce Homo! Yes, but how shall we behold this 
so perfect Brother of ours? We see in a picture 


262 


Which Temple Ye Are 


that which we are capable of understanding in it. 
And so with our vision of Christ. If one has been 
fortunate enough to have seen that magnificent 
Thing which ties my native land to the United 
States of America, the Falls of Niagara, he will 
find that his first view is very disappointing. It 
does not look immense enough to satisfy his 
expectations. If he remain in its presence for 
some length of time, he will find that his vision of 
it is filling out, enlarging, magnifying itself, until 
at length he comes to realize that he is in the pre¬ 
sence of tremendous compelling force, and of 
majestic and awe-inspiring beauty. If he approach 
it from the point where its rushing waters sink 
wearily into the lovely lake below, if he is carried 
up and up, just over its rapid edge through that 
unforgettable cleft in a cyclopean rock as he 
approaches nearer and yet nearer, the view is 
fearful and splendid. One feels as if he were being 
drawn into the alluring clasp of some mythic, 
vapour-draped, rainbow-crowned, living, pulsing, 
Thing. And it is a living Thing. Puny man has 
thrown chains of scientific skill around the great 
creature, and it is now throbbing out some of its 
heretofore wasted force over my native land, to 
give light and power to the people. Only the 
Poet saw the Thing for long ages. At length it 
chanced that the Utilitarian saw it. The result 
is that it is throbbing out light and mechanical 
force to the people. The Poet loved the beauty 


“ Behold the Man ” 


263 


of it, the Utilitarian claimed the right to use the 
strength of it for the serving of the people. This 
giant is composed of ordinary rock and the ordi¬ 
nary waters of our “great lakes” in contact. Its 
uniqueness arises from its largeness, its splendid 
beauty, and also now from its Utilitarianism. 

As we have said, we see in a picture that which 
we are able to respond to. And so we see Christ 
with as wide a vision as we are possessed of. For 
long ages, the poet has worshipped the beauty of 
the person of our Redeemer—and may God in His 
mercy grant that we may never thus cease to be 
poets—but to-day is the day of the triumph of the 
Utilitarian, even in our vision of the Blessed One. 
We have worshipped His nativity, His earth life, 
His anguish and dying passion. We have wor¬ 
shipped His memory in wellnigh the same spirit 
as though He were a mythic god, instead of the 
risen, reigning, Redeemer of the souls of men. The 
artist-poet has in adoration written through cen¬ 
turies Ecce Homo. The prophet-poet has also in 
adoration written through centuries upon centuries, 
“Behold the Man.” The prophet-poet fore- 
sketched the coming, not only of the weary way, 
but also of the triumphant finish, the coming of 
the Blessed One to His Own. And His Kingdom, 
they told us, was to be a blessed state of mankind, 
in which listening obedience was to bring us back 
to our primal purity, never again to err through 
ignorant disobedience. This is the age, in the 


264 


Which Temple Ye Are 


Christian dispensation, of the Utilitarian. Let 
us use the strength and vital force of the risen 
Christ to give our people light and strength for 
accomplishing our perfection; and so only shall we 
become enlightened with His Light, and shall we 
become perfected by His Perfection. With those 
words on our breastplate we shall become an 
invincible enemy to destruction, and an invaluable 
support to the reconstructive policy of our coming 
Hero-Sovereign. We are invited to take His 
burden upon us, and we are tenderly assured that 
it will not be heavy if we are yoked with Him. 
And in so doing we are promised rest to our weary 
souls. We shall abide in His triumphant rest¬ 
fulness, we shall sing with the sweet-voiced Mrs. 
Browning, “And I smiled to think God’s greatness 
flowed around our incompleteness—round our 
restlessness, His rest.” 

We had better watch for His approach , for He 
left word to us thus: 

“Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when 
he cometh shall find watching; verily I say unto you, 
that he shall gird himself, and make them sit down 
to meat, and shall come and serve them. And if he 
shall come in the second watch, and if in the third, 
and find them so, blessed are those servants.” 

It were shortsighted folly not to watch. If we 
watch events and thought-trends, as they are 
passing in swift panoramic vision before us to-day, 


“ Behold the Man ” 


265 


we shall see that our long day is reaching a climactic 
crisis. It pleased Jehovah to bruise the Blessed 
One, and put Him to grief; but when we make His 
soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, and 
the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand. 
He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be 
satisfied; by the knowledge of Himself shall He 
justify many, and He shall bear their iniquities. 
When we as a Christian people, each in his own 
soul, see that Christ’s purpose was, and now is, to 
cleanse our souls from the death-producing un¬ 
soundness of sinning, we shall begin to look about 
us in an endeavour to use in all conceivable ways 
this limitless strength of the Son of God towards 
the reconstruction of our systems of living, in 
order that it may become possible for us to attain, 
as a whole people, to the desirable status wherein 
we may sanely take into consideration whether it 
may be a not too visionary thing to formulate our 
code of moral laws in exact accordance with the 
grand ultimate morality of a restored mankind. 
We must see the Messiah as One Who serves 
the race; aye, the One Who saves the race. God 
has set His watchman on the walls of spiritual 
Jerusalem. 

‘ ‘ They shall never hold their peace day nor night; 
ye that are Jehovah’s remembrancers, take ye no rest, 
and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make 
Jerusalem a praise in the earth. ... Go through 


266 Which Temple Ye Are 

the gates; prepare ye the way of the people . . . 
gather out the stones; lift up an ensign for the peoples.” 
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all 
men unto myself.” 

He was cruelly lifted up from the earth—and 
crucified—and ever since, the world has been in 
a measure and in a certain manner drawn towards 
Him. But we have seen Him far too much as 
Martyr than as reigning Kang, or as heir- 
apparent, who is waiting for the ripening of His 
Father’s plans. 

A king may be a great man in some way of 
personal attainment, as a man, though he be ruler 
over the tiniest of kingdoms; but he cannot be a 
great king unless he have great empire over which 
to rule. A king may be a very poor sort of a 
man, and yet may be ruler over a great empire to 
whose greatness he has not contributed, but per¬ 
haps the reverse. But given a great man, and a 
great empire, we should look for a splendid result. 
We have looked upon our Saviour as a great man, 
a great martyr, and some of us have looked upon 
Him as a wellnigh automatic portion of the Father’s 
scheme of atonement for our sins. We have 
acknowledged that He was great in His willingness 
to acquiesce in the will of His Father, or rather the 
reconciling demands of His Father God. We have 
acknowledged that He taught a splendid code of 
morals, and have, shall we say, shrugged our 
shoulders at the idea of trying to follow it. We 


“ Behold the Man ’ 


267 


have remembered that He is before the Throne 
of God, interceding for our shortcomings and spirit¬ 
ual infirmities, and have so taken licence, and 
continued to be short of righteousness, and infirm 
in our spirits. We have hopes that when we die, 
we shall be taken into His presence, and receive 
His warm and loving commendation—for our 
weak-kneed faith. We trust in His precious blood 
that was shed for us to make us whole—quite 
forgetting the real cause and the purifying process 
of His mission. We weave around His person and 
mission all sorts of doctrinal and ritualistic winding 
sheets, until to many of us, Christianity is hut a 
name for our hereditary cultus. We grant that all 
our conceptions of Christ when fitted together give 
us a picture of, not only a great man, but also give 
us a faint glimmering of the Majesty of His power 
as He sits at the right hand of His Father. Great 
as a man, great as the Son of God, we feel we know 
that He is; but in Empire do we see Him great as 
yet? 

The kingdoms of the world were to be Satan’s 
until the later times. Christ Jesus had refused 
them—at Satan’s price. We must admit that it 
was the Will of the Father who created Light and 
Darkness, Good and Evil, that it should be so. 
But full authority was Christ’s at His ascending to 
the Father, by way of the cross. And after His 
experiences in Paradise preceding His Resurrec¬ 
tion and Ascension, He said, “I ascend unto my 


268 


Which Temple Ye Are 


Father, and your Father.” When the Kingdoms 
of this world shall be the Kingdoms of our Lord 
and of His Christ, and He shall reign unto the ages 
of the ages, we shall see Him in His full Kingship. 
He will be completed by His full Empire. A great 
man must have great Empire before he can be 
said to be a great king. The further completeness 
of the greatness of our King is dependent on His 
increased Empire. His Empire is the Kingdom of 
Heaven, and He Himself said that it was in the 
hearts of men. Granted this, then His Kingdom 
is subject both in quantity and quality to the 
individual souls or hearts of men. This is why 
we are said to be made anew in Christ. We are not 
in His Kingdom unless we are living in His spirit 
of service. Every soul that has gotten a glimpse 
of the lifted up Son of Man sets himself to attune 
his life in accordance with the coming regime of 
the Redeemer of men’s Souls from sin. He sees 
the Utilitarian phase of the Messianic mission and 
at once enlists for service. He becomes a soldier 
of the Cross. From that moment he belongs to 
Christ’s new Kingdom. He will at once be put 
into training for the fighting of sinful practices 
amongst us. He will be proud of the great Over- 
Lord. He will be delighted to be allowed to do 
the smallest service whilst being trained for 
greater action. A sovereign does not train his 
soldiers in person; that is the work of the officers 
of his army. Christ Jesus said He would send the 


“ Behold the Man ” 269 

Spirit of Truth to us, to bring to remembrance all 
the things which He taught us. 

“ He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on 
High; having become by so much better than the angels, 
as he hath inherited a more excellent name than they. 
. . . And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his 
angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire. . . . 
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do ser¬ 
vice for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?” 
‘‘Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed 
to the things that are heard, lest haply we drift away 
from them. For if the word spoken through angels 
proved stedfast, and every transgression and diso¬ 
bedience received a just recompense of reward; how 
shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? 
Which having at the first been spoken through the 
Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard; 
God also bearing witness with them, both by signs 
and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts 
of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will.” 

It shows us that the angels who are filled with the 
Holy Spirit are obedient in their service to the 
Messiah in His redemptive mission to our race. 
That they minister to us, we are sure; and may we 
not say that they train us to that service which in 
Christ Jesus gives us life eternal? If we are heirs 
to salvation, we are to have this ministry. Also 
after we have become fitted to receive, we are to 
be filled with the Holy Spirit ourselves . When 
we have been trained by these holy teachers in 


270 


Which Temple Ye Are 


the commands of Christ, we too shall be filled 
with this Holy Spirit, which permeates their 
very service, and thus shall the Holy Spirit per¬ 
meate our every action. This is not only our 
privilege, but a necessity for our salvation. It is 
most clearly taught. It is thus that we become 
Temples fit for the indwelling of the Spirit. If 
we defile ourselves and thus destroy our possibili¬ 
ties of being fit Temples of God we, of course, are 
destroyed ultimately. We can only continue to 
live eternally if we be tenanted by the Spirit of 
God Who is Life. 

And thus we must behold the risen Redeemer, as 
King of a Universal Empire, of which the soul of a 
man is the unit. We must see that there is no 
eternal work excepting the saving of souls for this 
Kingdom. There is no saving of souls for this 
Kingdom except by saving them from sinning. 
This was that which the angels claimed to be the 
mission of the child Jesus before His birth, “For 
it is he that shall save his people from their sins. ” 
Christ’s Kingdom is composed of sinless souls. 
Christ’s work has been, and is, to gather such souls 
together in training for this sinless life. I do not 
claim that either of us can live without the many 
errors of conduct that to our fellows look like wil¬ 
ful sinning, but I do contend, that all of us can so 
live as to be conscious of no desire except to be ut¬ 
terly and absolutely obedient to the risen Saviour. 
I do contend this to be possible; for else how shall 


“ Behold the Man ” 


271 


Christ have a Kingdom? As soon as a man joins 
the army he is a soldier. He is ignorant of military 
discipline, but if he is a right minded person he will 
obey and try to understand all discipline as quickly 
as he can. He must be trained, but he is a soldier 
from the start. A young man goes to learn a trade. 
He subjects himself to the required training at 
once. He is from the day of entering known to be 
a carpenter, painter, or machinist. He has per¬ 
haps as yet acquired but little knowledge of his 
calling, but if he be true to it he will eventually 
come out of training well equipped for his work. 
And so if we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our 
Redeemer, and also as the Redeemer of the whole 
race—as we know of the race—we shall at once 
put ourselves into His keeping without reserve, to 
do with us as He will, and never doubt but that 
all which comes in the way of experience and dis¬ 
cipline is wisely and kindly sent us. We shall 
come to regard our many experiences with the 
interest of the young apprentice. We shall be 
constantly reminding ourselves that everything 
that we do is meant to be a lesson learnt. Life 
becomes of divine significance when viewed in this 
light. A little child will often cry to its parents, 
Oh, do let me try to do this or that, I am sure I 
can do it. These little ones are so delighted and 
filled with justifiable pride on the performance of 
some small new piece of service. I wish we could 
imbibe more of the simple trusting, attaining 


27 2 


Which Temple Ye Are 


spirit of these little ones. No wonder The Master 
said that we must become like them. “Of such 
is the Kingdom of God. ” 

Everything in the Scriptures points to the King¬ 
dom of Heaven, or the heavenly state into which 
man’s mind should eventually turn, as contrasted 
with man’s mind as it has been, and now is. In 
ordinary warfare, the foe, as a rule, is outside of the 
kingdom. In some, nay, many cases, the warfare 
is between divisions within the nation. But where 
shall you show me another kingdom wherein war¬ 
fare arises between a man’s habits of mind and 
body, and his own soul? In the great kingdoms 
of the world, national greatness has usually arisen 
from some one dominant spirit by whom the mass 
of men who go to compose the nation are either 
driven, or led, or both. In the Kingdom of 
Heaven, certainly Christ is eminently dominant , 
and urges and leads the children of the Kingdom 
along. But there is this difference, the urging and 
leading is towards the holy self-sacrificing sinless 
life; and not to avarice and bloodshed. There is 
in the Kingdom of Heaven nothing but holiness 
and happiness, in their many workings, to secure. 
There is nothing to kill but sin and death, in all 
their manifold workings. In worldly kingdoms we 
have our Royal Lines, our older and newer nobility, 
our masses or middle class, our artisans, etc., and 
our poor. An amusing series of differentiating 
phases in social status, precedence, etc., lies 


“ Behold the Man ” 


273 


between king and pauper. In the Kingdom of 
Heaven this does not exist. Certainly we find 
that Christ has a government parallel in a way to 
an earthly government. We read in Revelation 
about the many authoritative angels, and the four 
and twenty elders, the saints, etc. But all those 
who overcame were to inherit the Kingdom with 
the conquering Anointed One, were to be joint 
heirs with Him. If we attain to this Royal Degree, 
we must attain to it as He did, by prayers, strong 
crying, tears, and obedience. “For in that he 
himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to 
succour them that are tempted. ” So if we be not 
each called upon to be in the Messianic govern¬ 
ment, we each have a right, and call, to become 
Sons of God, joint heirs with Christ, and temples 
of the Holy Spirit. This surely is honour enough 
for a human soul to aspire to, and to give him 
incentive for his very best efforts. 

And thus in a humble spirit, but in full assurance 
that we are led by the Spirit of Truth, do we appeal 
to those who profess to believe in, and follow the 
religion that has come to be called Christianity. 

“God, God! 

With a child’s voice I cry, 

Weak, sad, confidingly— 

God, God! 

Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up 
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop 
As ours, o’er many a tear. ” 

18 


274 


Which Temple Ye Are 


We essay only to do that which countless others 
have also endeavoured to do, i. e. to bring to the 
attention of the modern mind the importance of 
our day and generation, and the importance of 
individual life and effort; and of the almost com¬ 
plete uselessness of individual effort without 
correct aim, careful preparation for service and 
stedfastness of purpose in that service, in the 
full knowledge of the succour, support, and direc¬ 
tion of the risen Christ. We must become temples 
holy and undefiled, and fit for the service of the 
eternal Father. We must, as a whole people, be 
builded together, a habitation that shall be a suit¬ 
able abiding place for the indwelling Spirit of God. 
We must awaken from the deep sleep that has 
overtaken our souls while we have waited in the 
night for the appearance of the Bridegroom. We 
must follow the teaching and commands of the 
risen Christ, as well as trust in His atoning power. 
We must be so consistent with our significant name 
that it shall be no sarcasm to call us Christians. 
If we so believe and so obey, we shall do the same 
marvellous works that the Messiah did, and that 
He gave His disciples power to do. We have these 
gifts but to little extent, because we have not this 
obedient belief in the Founder of our Faith. 

The unfailing signs of our belief are found want¬ 
ing to-day; therefore it is evident that we do not 
fully believe. And the world knows that we do 
not fully believe; and while perhaps fearing us, 


“ Behold the Man ” 


275 


still holds our inconsistency in derision. Do we 
as yet love one another? And yet this is the 
test by which men shall know whether or not 
we are Christians. Alas, we have inherited this 
dreadful taint of Cain, the desire to slay our 
brother. And we still make enormous prepara¬ 
tions for this unholy instinct to spend itself. 
Thank the pitiful Father that our Statesmen are 
coming to see this vast outlay, which would well 
feed and clothe our poorest little ones, more as an 
instrument to prevent this awful slaughter than 
for the accomplishment of it. We thank Him 
also that our people are coming to see that he who 
does not save his brother’s life if he can, slays him. 
We are surely awakening to our responsibility as 
to the weaker, more unfortunate ones, and few of 
us would dare to-day to cry—at least aloud—“Am 
I my brother’s keeper? ” for we have come to realise 
that to be a real citizen of a nation is indeed to be 
our brother’s keeper; that this alone is true citizen¬ 
ship. When we turn our half-awakened eyes upon 
systems and usages as they prevail in their destruc¬ 
tive mission to-day, we are stricken with remorse 
and shame. We are ashamed of the prodigality 
of our wasted resources of the past; we see that if 
we do not return to sanity we shall decay and pass 
away as a nation. Already we see our wisest sons 
of the State saying with one voice, “We will arise 
and go unto our Father.” They are, in practice , 
saying, 


276 


Which Temple Ye Are 


“We will repent of all our old loathsome usages 
which have resulted in so much sinning, suffering, and 
sickness amongst our brothers of all classes. We will 
begin by rescuing the most heavily oppressed, and we 
shall hope, in time, to repent of all our evil ways, and 
turn to do that which is just and right as a happy and 
united people; united and happy under Christ in the 
service of His so perfect coming Kingdom.” 

When this is accomplished we shall be a nation 
of clean-souled individuals, each of us, in his own 
place and time, doing all we can to prepare our¬ 
selves and each other for this glorious service. 
The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by violence, and 
it requires very careful preparation before we are 
of much service to our overcoming King. We 
must repent and be cleansed from our wrong 
desires and instincts and standpoints. We must 
be born anew from above, so that we shall see all 
issues from the eternal and infinite standpoint. 
When we are thus prepared we shall feel that we 
can walk with obedient confidence, knowing that 
we shall be guided in all our endeavours by the 
counsel of the Father, and that we shall always be 
under His directing eye. We shall thus be 
“Stedfast, immovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord. ” We shall be encompassed by 
the loving-kindness of our heavenly Father and His 
Beloved Son. But we shall also become assured, 
as our spiritual education is widening our sense of 
discernment, that we may not hope for particular 


“ Behold the Man ” 


277 


and further conscious instruction from our Father, 
until we learn to be quite obedient to the Light 
which we now have, the Scriptures. It is these 
which tell us of the great mission to us of the 
Light of the World, our Saviour. This obedience 
to the Light will bring to us the consciousness of 
having on our breastplates the Light to perceive, 
and the Perfection which is the result of this 
obedience. There are many promises of powers 
or gifts to the disciples of Christ, but until we are 
obedient to the cleansing of our spirits from all 
unrighteousness, we cannot hope to do signs and 
wonders in His name. Himself said to the scoffing 
religionists, “If I by the finger of God cast out 
demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon 
you.” Just as we are able in His name to cast 
out our particular modem demons, which do so 
harass us to-day, to that degree is Christ’s King¬ 
dom come. Every soul that becomes purified and 
strengthened to fight against the dread foe, un¬ 
righteousness, is a citizen of the new City to be. 
Every demon of avarice, lust, sickness, want, etc., 
that is cast forth is giving place to the holier spirits 
of loving-kindness, purity, plenty, health, and all 
good gifts. It is a clean and willing hand that can 
use “The Finger of God.” We are told, “Watch 
ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be 
strong. ” And we are wisely warned, “ Let all that 
ye do be done in love. ” It is indeed difficult to see 
wisely, to stand fast against seemingly too great 


278 


Which Temple Ye Are 


odds; to be strong when the heart is weary with its 
struggling. It is sometimes the hardest part of all 
to do all in love. I think that the only way in which 
we poor mortals can obey this difficult word, is to 
establish our sense of love to man on our pity for 
him—ourselves included—in his weakness and 
perverted instinct. We all, like sheep, have gone 
astray; we are none good, no not one. As we 
learn to pity each his own inability, so shall we 
pity our brother. Tender pity is closely akin to 
the Love of God. So we are told to do all recon¬ 
structing service in a spirit of this divine love. We 
are urged to be careful but to be very strong; and 
we are expected each one of us to quit us like men, 
real men. Man was made in the image of God 
and stood erect, sinless, good. Can we do this as 
yet? Alas, no. But to this high standard of 
being we must attain. There is need to be strong 
in the strength of the ever present Spirit, the 
Comforter, Whom Christ will send to help us in 
our need. So, we need not depend entirely upon 
our own wisdom or strength, but we had better 
use the highest wisdom we are possessed of, the 
utmost strength and courage that we can muster, 
“Then look up, and pray.” Think you that the 
mighty God will fail us? Never. He will point 
us to “the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin 
of the world,” and command us, “Hear ye him.” 
If we look upon the Lamb of God as He is shown 
forth in His teaching, and living example, we shall 


“ Behold the Man ’ 


279 


have such a vision of the sin-sick world, as it now 
is, left in relief, that we shall pray to be made fit 
for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in order that 
we may, not so much save ourselves, as help the 
risen Saviour, in ever so humble a way, to save 
others, the whole race, in any way we are called 
upon by the monitor within to do. We shall care 
for no honour in all the world of men other than 
the honour of being Sons of God, joint heirs with 
Jesus Christ, Temples of the Holy Spirit. We shall 
see no work as being honourable, excepting it tend 
towards the Kingdom of Heaven. We shall know 
that we are created anew in Christ Jesus for these 
good works. This is the only reason for our 
existence. 

Only by obedient service for the Kingdom are we 
assured of eternal life. “ Know ye not that ye are 
a Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the 
Temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the 
Temple of God is holy, which Temple ye are.” 
Do we wish to be Temples of God? If so, will 
He accept us? 

“ If I ask Him to receive me, 

Will He say me nay? 

Not till earth and not till heaven 
Pass away. 

Finding, following, keeping, struggling, 

Is He sure to bless? 

Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs, 

Answer, ‘Yes.’” 
















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